Spotify to allow users to change speed of and remix songs “while generating new revenue for artists”

nme.com:

Spotify is reportedly planning on introducing a feature to allow users to slow down, speed up and remix songs on the platform.The developments have been detailed in a new report by the Wall Street Journal, who say that the streaming service is looking to experiment with tools that will allow users to manipulate existing songs on the platform.The report suggests that users will be able to edit and mash together tracks to create modified versions of songs that can them be added to “virtual collections” on Spotify, but which will then not be available to share on external platforms.The Wall Street Journal suggests that “discussions about the tools are early and licensing agreements have yet to be worked out,” but that they hope the additions will “appeal to young users, while generating new revenue for artists.”At the start of this month, the streaming platform officially demonetised all songs with less than 1000 streams, having first announced the policy last year in the ‘Modernising Our Royalty System’ report.According to Spotify data, there are around 100 million songs on the service, yet only around 37.5 million meet the new requirements to generate revenue.Spotify said that 99.5 per cent of all streams on the platform “are of tracks that have above 1,000 streams.” They went on to claim that demonetising the tracks won’t result in a “change to the size of the music royalty pool being paid out to rights holders”.It argued that instead it will “use the tens of millions of dollars annually to increase the payments to all eligible tracks, rather than spreading it out into $0.03 payments.”Spotify also went on to say it requires a minimum number of unique listeners now if royalties are to apply – a measure brought in to.