Illustrations by Jan Buchczik

In May 2009, the New York Times reported on the launch of a new streaming service. According to the Times more than a million users across Europe had already signed onto the service, most of whom were paying nothing for access to about three million songs through computer downloads. The music service’s 25-year-old founder, Daniel Ek, was quoted in the article. “My hope and ambition is that we’ll see something at the end of the year, maybe the beginning of next year, in the U.S,” said Ek. “We want to be everywhere.”

The service was Spotify, the global behemoth of music streaming. The concept of Ek’s industry-defining company was simple, access a universal catalogue of music by either paying a monthly fee or listening to ads at the start of a song. Today, Ek’s desire to be “everywhere” has transpired (well, almost). As of June 2015, Spotify is available in 58 markets and boasts around 75 million active users. Pretty impressive for a company that’s only been around for eight years.

But Spotify is just one example of a number of services answering the need for ready-to-access music. Deezer, Apple Music, Pandora, SoundCloud, Amazon Music and Google Play Music, among others, have all emerged in the wake of the streaming revolution, providing access over ownership for a global community of music lovers.

When it comes to pressing issues in the music industry the perceived ‘value gap’ between the income of large online companies is big Allen Bargfrede, Rethink Music