Spotify, a mobile app that is well-known for its free music, is now considering to offer some music only to its paid subscribers.
According to the report of the Wall Street Journal, Spotify has held private talks with music executives to talk about allowing some artists to only offer their music to the 20 million premium users of the mobile app for a period of time, before it can finally be heard by the remaining 80 million users that use the app for free.
The issue about temporarily withholding some music to the free users surfaced when Taylor Swift pulled out all of her music from Spotify, because the company wanted to offer the same music to both free and premium users.
"We are 100% committed to our model because we believe that a free, ad-supported tier combined with a more robust premium tier is the best way to deliver music to fans, create value for artists and songwriters, and grow the industry," said Jonathan Prince, Spotify's Global Head of Communications & Public Policy, in a statement.
Following Taylor Swift, British singer-songwriter Adele has also decided to withhold her new album "25" from Spotify and other streaming services last month.
Time reported that the plan of using the newest album of Coldplay to experiment on the plan of making the music available only for premium subscribers for a few months, was halted due to the disagreements between both parties.
"In that context, we explored a wide range of promotional options for the new Coldplay album and ultimately decided, together with management, that Coldplay and its fans would best be served with the full album on both free and premium this Friday," said Prince.