What Metallica on Spotify Might Tell Us About The Future of On Demand Music Streaming Sites

For artists, music streaming sites are a tricky subject. On one hand, they are great vehicles to get our music out in the hands of an ever growing audience hungry for on demand music. On the other, they are not so great because $.007 per play doesn't help keep the lights on at the recording studio. But is it possible the latter could be changing?

In the world of investing people always keep an eye on Warren Buffet because everything seemingly turns to gold for him.

Something similar is happening now in the music marketing world. A few months back, as the result of some savvy business moves, Metallica regained 100% control over their catalog from The Record Man. Quick side note…In a world where artists get jacked all the time, this is good news and should be taken note of regardless of how you feel about them or their music.

Anyway, who cares you say?

Well it would seem to me that they spent a lot of time thinking about how they are going to invest in the brands bands future. I think it would be wise for us as artists to take note of what they are up to.

In particular, they kissed and made up with Sean Parker and added their entire catalog onto Spotify. That may not seem like a huge deal to some of you but considering Metallica's strong reaction to their stuff being available for free download during the whole Napster era, something tells me that they see profit on the horizon. I mean, they've proven that they are totally against the free model (see video below) so they have to be seeing something down the road right? And that something isn't the current $.007 per play (BTW this is a rough estimate based on my CDBaby stats)..

As an artist I haven't been a huge fan of music streaming sites but as music fan I am BIG fan (it is just way to cool having nearly every piece of music in history at your finger tips). I get the feeling Metallica thinks that more and more music fans are going to feel the same way. If they do, there could be a lot more money in streaming.

Where do you stand? Do you agree or disagree?

UPDATE: I just read the following article after I posted this. I STRONGLY recommend you check out a post by Kyle Bylin on some stuff Ian Rogers, Trent Reznor and the peeps at MOG/BEATS are working on: Daisy Chain: Dying Music Industry Sprouts New Hope