Deezer attempts to take on Spotify

Deezer is keen to take on Spotify, and figures that giving stuff away is the way to go:

"Our ad-supported service is a necessary trigger to drive global change by bringing music subscription to mass audiences worldwide," [Deezer CEO Axel] Dauchez added.

"Our aim here is to encourage music fans to try us, driving ad-supported service listeners to switch to paid subscription over time. Once they have properly experienced Deezer, people do not go back."

Although the trial service fires adverts between songs, which isn't really a sense of what the paid service is like - it's like trying to decide if you'd be great at dating someone by hanging out with them in a supermarket queue.

Warners man takes chunk of Deezer

Len Blavatnik, who bought Warners a while back, has invested about 80 million quid in Deezer, the music streaming site.

Is Blavatnik a shrewd investor? Besides the way he lobbed cash into Warners, which doesn't really suggest a man able to set aside sentiment from a long-term outlook.

Well, he put cash into Top-Up TV.

Yes you do, Top-Up TV. They had that advert with the gnomes in it a few years back. They base their business on the idea that when people buy a Freeview box to avoid having to subscribe to TV services, what they really mean is they desperately want to be able to subscribe to TV services. That Top-Up TV.

Deezer, this far, has been ticking along - mostly trying for growth outside the US where it's too difficult and/or expensive to do much. Presumably the new money will be an attempt to break that market.

There's something almost a little sweet about Deezer's Wikiepdia entry, particularly this line:

Some artists are not available on Deezer due to licensing restrictions by the record labels: Francis Cabrel and The Beatles are examples.

Nothing says 'not really trying in North America' like the lack of Francis Cabrel tracs being a major point of note, does it?

Deezer's fundamental flaw is that it requires you to be logged in to Facebook to use it. It's bad enough that Facebook insists you be logged in to use it, but at least you can see why Facebook might tie themselves so closely to their single log-in. What future would Deezer have when Facebook hits its Decline of Empire point?

French music site made much, much worse

Deezer had been doing for French music fans what Spotify has been doing for the Anglophone and Scandinavian audience.

Now, though, it's been 'improved' in a way which suggests the dead fingers of the music industry throttling another golden goose. You now need to have an account, accept your email address getting sold on to anyone Deezer chooses, and:

But here’s the worst part: some tracks on members’ playlists have simply become inaccessible, due to “territorial restrictions” imposed by the record companies. Hence, a song from a UK album version can in some cases no longer be listened to in France. The member then has to search for the track again on a French or international version of the album – assuming there is one.

The Deezer team have been trying to defend their position:

Jonathan Benassaya, one of the co-founders of Deezer, justified these changes in an interview (in French) with French IT news site PC INpact.

Seemingly unapologetic, he said: “We all want to say that with the internet there are no longer any borders, except that the music industry still reasons in terms of territorialities. We need to reassure this industry because without them we can’t live. Indeed, the Deezernauts are not happy, which is natural, but on the other hand Deezer needs to be able to grow and remain the star pupil, and as long as we’re like that we’ll be able to move forward with the industry. This industry is not well and, in such a situation, we have to accompany them.”

It must be a tricky position to play: you need the licences, and if those who offer the licences are idiots, you have to pretend to like their idiocy. Trouble is, the price of remaining star pupil is discovering that, outside the classroom, you start to fall behind everyone else.