Spotify spreading its wings

I’m seemingly obsessed with Spotify, I know. Today comes news that the service is adding a new service to it’s API library. This update will surface the 15 million (+) songs on the service through the API library to iOS developers.

One can now assume that there will be a litany of new apps for iPhone and iPad that incorporate some aspect of the Spotify library. Possibly music trivia games? Or perhaps some kind of mashup between Shamzam and Spotify? Oooh that would be cool. Imagine it. You’re at a party, hearing a song you can’t remember…Shazam recognizes it for you and Spotify then adds it to a playlist for you automagically! Neat.

Interestingly enough though, is an aspect to this that is not being discussed. Disapproval from the music industry. Spotify is already receiving a ton of heat for it’s alleged inconsistent royalty payments to artists and labels. Small labels in particular have not been very happy (including Century Media to name one) with the service and have been pulling content from it’s databases. Spotify have also been very quick to defend themselves at each turn where disapproval meets them.

I’m hoping the business comes to terms with offended labels as I feel the service has a solid offering with a truly compelling iPhone (and Android) app to port the service from computer to mobile device. The music space needs services like Spotify (and Pandora, Grooveshark, Rhapsody, et all) to provide options to consumers with a compelling offering. Opening up it’s music content to iOS developers is an interesting development in the evolution of truly digital music service offerings. Let’s just hope they can continue to innovate without ruffling feathers.