Originally developed as a start up business in Sweden back in 2006, Spotify has marched its way into the forefront of the worlds musical streaming market. Resultantly, it have become a platform in which is both reliant on the music industry just as much as the industry relies on it, correspondingly.
Now that Spotify is well distributed and available amongst most of Europe, the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and some parts of Asia, it has a global responsibility to market and present music to a widespread audience. Over the past few years, many debates have arisen surrounding accreditation in music; particularly towards songwriters and producers, both of which provide a fundamental, contextual role in what becomes the music we consume and shift money towards, which in turn allows for the industry to remain current and functional. As a result of the arguments, which now occupy a lot of mainstream news and social debates, Spotify have now launched a brand new feature, a first edition iteration which allows its users around the world to view songwriter and producer credits for tracks on the desktop platform. By simply right clicking on a track and selecting “Show Credits” from the menu of options, the result will display information on the songs performers, songwriters and producers.
At the launch of the newly decorated feature, Spotify have demonstrated their intelligence from record label-provided metadata, which will also display the source of the credits so users are made aware of where exactly these contributing individuals are coming from. Understandably though, for a newly introduced feature, Spotify have highlighted that due to them being in the opening stages of the features advancement, some of the label-provided credits are incomplete or may contain inaccuracies, inaccuracies, which are currently being developed. The feature will continually evolve to become more efficient, provide better functionality, and incorporate more information from industry partners over time. Not only does the feature allow for users to know who built the foundations of the track, it also works well for artists who may have been overlooked before to now gain credit for their art and have a new ability to network with other musicians.
Tiffany Kumar, Global Head of Songwriter Relations at Spotify said, “With the newly launched credits feature, we aim to increase songwriter and producer visibility and, in turn, foster discovery among new collaborators, industry partners, and fans.”
“The more we share information, the more opportunities we can help create for songwriters,” added Annika Goldman, Director of Music Publishing Operations at Spotify.
“This is just the beginning of making songwriter and producer credits more easily available to Spotify listeners, and we look forward to continually improving that information, in close collaboration with our music industry partners.”
The news comes after many conversations, dominantly across social media platform, began to catch the attention of influential music and news websites. Last month, TM88, producer of Lil Uzi Vert’s formidably iconic 2017 hit “XO Tour Lif3” took to Twitter to reveal that he had not been paid for his work on the record, a record which took Uzi to number sevem on the Billboard Hot 100 as well as gaining a double platinum certification.
The newly implemented feature from Spotify also comes after a ruling from the US-based Copyright Royalty Board increasing streaming pay outs to songwriters by 43.8%, which is a mighty victory for both publishers and writers.