In 2008 the online music jukebox known as Spotify was launched, to date there are over 24 million users, but a vast majority of those users are using the free version of Spotify, which is filled with ads. Although Spotify is paying record labels money for the tracks they have, not all of it makes it’s way to the artists. Also not all the record labels are being paid. One of which is Ministry Of Sound, which has been putting out their compilation, The Annual since 1995. Which brings us to the issue, users on Spotify have been making playlists ‘copying’ the Ministry Of Sound’s various compilations. Even though Spotify has the rights to each individual track, Ministry of Sound has applied for an injunction that would force Spotify to delete playlists made by the users that ‘copy’ the tracklist’s of the record label’s various compilations. Ministry of Sound is also seeking costs and damages.
Ministry Of Sound released a statement earlier this week: 
“The heart of Ministry of Sound’s recordings business is the painstaking curation of compilation albums,” the company said in a statement.-The company contends that the law protects the expertise and creative effort involved in creating compilation albums that have helped millions of music fans world-wide discover new genres, recordings and catalogs,”
Spotify’s Spokeman responded with:
“Spotify’s goal is to grow a service which people love and ultimately want to pay for. Every single time a track is played on Spotify, rights holders are paid – and every track played on Spotify is played under a full license from the owners of that track. We want to help artists connect with their fans, find new audiences, grow their fan base and make a living from the music we all love.”
Which brings us to the question for our readers: What do you think, should Spotify be overlooking our playlist’s?
Source: The Guardian/Forbes/Wall Street Journal
Creating compilations is an art! Pay for it! NOT! If people putting the songs into playlists they probably heard the rest of the crappy compilation, but didn’t liked it.
I think it’s interesting that MOS is going after Spotify on this one. I think it’s in MOS best interest to find a way around people doing this themselves rather than forcing Spotify to adopt some new rules in their favour, especially ones that raise some privacy concerns. One solution might be for MOS to simply not license ALL their music to Spotify.