In an interesting development, Spotify recently told music executives that they were considering allowing some musicians to release music only to its paid subscribers, according to the Wall Street Journal.According to a "person familiar with the matter," they plan to try this initially as a test in order to see how it affects usage and sign-up numbers. Not only is the company not ready to announce a permanent policy change, they are also not sure which artists this will apply to—a decision-making process that will doubtless be quite complicated in itself.The Journal writes that "Labels see paid-streaming services as key to their future, as sales of CDs and music downloads continue to plummet, and say that free services such as YouTube erode the value of music while failing to generate sufficient advertising revenue."This potential shift in Spotify's gameplan notably comes following Taylor Swift's famous refusal to host her music on the app, as well as Adele's recent withholding of her new album 25 from streaming in general. The record ended up selling 4.5 million copies in the first two weeks, which may not be a coincidence.At one point there were plans to allow Coldplay to put their new album Head Full Of Dreams, but those fell through when the band's management was unable to promise that the record would not end up on free streaming services like YouTube during the time it was unavailable on Spotify Free.Read more from the WSJ here.Follow Alexander on Twitter.
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