In March we posted a report titled "The Music Industry is frowning on Freemium Streaming Services just as Apple's New Service is Around the Corner." The report clearly noted that music industry leaders were rethinking the value of freemium streaming services as were premium streaming services like UK's "Ministry of Sound" who had previously taken and beaten Spotify in court.

While Spotify is the market leader in music streaming, with 60m subscribers, the fact is that most of their customers use its free tier with only about 15m paying for the service. So only one in four are paying for music services and that's not what the music industry was hoping for with the freemium streaming service model.

With Apple preparing to blast their way onto the scene with a new music streaming service later this year starting at US$9.99 or thereabouts, paranoia has set into this market segment. The paranoia has extended to Apple being investigated by both European regulators as well as the US DOJ to ensure that Apple isn't abusing their iTunes market position with the main music studios to gain better pricing. 

And while nobody wants to spit out the company name that's behind the formal complaints against Apple, most believe it's Spotify, the one who has the most to gain by stopping or hindering Apple from entering this market quickly.

Even Spotify knows that with Apple and others moving into to the streaming music business this year that they have to begin delivering new services or die. Reports from The Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and others are now saying that Spotify is working on a video-streaming service that will complement its music platform as the battle for dominance in digital content heats up.

The privately owned Swedish group will announce the new service at a launch event in New York on May 20, said people familiar with the matter. The Spotify service will not be comparable to Netflix, Hulu or other video offerings. Instead, it will support the company's core music service, reports the Financial Times.

Obviously Spotify is trying to get ahead of the news that will likely be coming out Apple's World Wide Developer Conference in June regarding Apple's new music service(s).

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