investigated: is streaming music safe?

Should you put all your eggs in the streaming basket?

Why wouldn’t it be safe?

Streaming services aren’t invincible. Rdio, for example, has recently shut its doors, leaving hundreds of thousands of users without their favourite playlists and without its unique features. Others are struggling – Tidal hasn’t had the uptake in subscriptions that its high-bandwidth, highend nature probably requires.

Spotify won’t close, right?

All indications say no, but don’t be surprised to see more of your favourite artists and labels sprinting away from the service thanks to its relatively low 0.006pper-play royalties. The company is also in a spot of legal bother for uploading tracks for which it doesn’t know the copyright holder.

So is streaming doomed?

Absolutely not. There are plenty of streaming services, they’re (mostly) financially stable, and the major labels and artists are (mostly) getting on board with the new wave of music consumption. We expect quality to follow and HD streaming to become the norm as soon as it becomes the standard for digital releasing. But there are no guarantees that your preferred service will stay static. You don’t own the music, and it can be taken away without notice.

So what’s the alternative?

Well, it’s not cheap if you’re a big consumer of different music, but you’re going to have to – shock horror – purchase music outright. Retailers like Amazon will offer you MP3s, backed up on the company’s servers, of any CDs you buy, and services like Google Music are a great way to get your personally owned tunes online for streaming at your leisure.