It was just under two weeks ago when we reported that Spotify is moving into the metaverse through the launch of Spotify Island on Roblox. Now it looks like Spotify is further expanding and taking advantage of the interesting possibilities offered by Web3 by giving some artists on the platform the chance to display and possibly sell NFTs on their Spotify pages.
The test of this new feature was first spotted by Music Ally. They picked up on a tweet that detailed a recent survey the streaming platform has been pushing out to some users. In the survey, Spotify asks users how they would feel about purchasing multimedia NFTs linked to the releases of new albums and even how much they would be willing to pay for them. There is even an option to pay $150+ for these NFTs.
This is a very interesting development as it means Spotify is offering artists a new way to earn money from their music. It is ironic, however, that artists are desperate for new ways to earn money as Spotify pays so little to artists for each listen, they get on the platform. This irony has not been lost on users on Twitter.
However, it doesn’t look like Spotify will be taking a cut from the NFT sales in the small test of this new feature that it is currently running. The test is live so some Spotify users will be able to check it out. To see if you have the test activated on your version of the app you should update to the latest version of the app and then head to the pages of artists including The Wombats and Steve Aoki as both have been confirmed as participating in the test.
Still, this move from Spotify indicates that the platform thinks users will have to pay more if artists are going to receive better earnings from the platform and is offering another way, on top of merch and concert ticket sales, for artists to sell directly to listeners. If this test is successful, in essence, Spotify users would be paying to sample new music on the platform and then given the option to purchase related content or even the music itself directly from the artists.
We’ll be keeping an eye on this one to see how it develops as giving artists the opportunity to sell their music as NFTs offers some revolutionzing possibilites to the music industry, the likes of which are already being explored by project such as DAORecords.
If you don’t like the sound of this story and are thinking of ditching Spotify you might find our guide to transferring Spotify playlists to Apple Music useful.
Image via: Twitter
