Spotify will launch its streaming service in the US between 5 and 15 July.  Spotify offers music online in the form of streams, as an alternative to downloading and allows users to listen to music free of charge. Advertising revenues support the free version. There are also paid subscriptions. In that case you pay for the music and in return you get more options. An example thereof is that you can listen to the music without having internet connection. 

In the Netherlands, Spotify is already a success. The music catalogs of four major music labels (EMI, Warner, Universal and Sony) are available, as well as those of many smaller labels. Also, the Dutch collective management organization Buma / Stemra has a licensing agreement with Spotify.

Now we will have to wait and see whether Spotify will also become a success in the States. The U.S. market was reluctant to cooperate with Spotify, partly because there already are other streaming services in the US and partly because the record labels did not (immediately) want to work with the Freemium business model. Perhaps the success of Spotify in Europe contributed to the fact that American parties are now willing to cooperate. Furthermore it’s a fact that around 1 million users pay monthly for listening to music via Spotify and the number of paying customers increases twice as fast as the number of free users. This might also have convinced the American labels to cooperate with Spotify.

Reference: Parool.nl