Daniel Ek: Spotify and free music will save the industry, not kill it

The music streaming pioneer has come under fire from critics such as Taylor Swift for giving away songs. Now he faces a new challenge from Apple

The chief executive of Spotify, Daniel Ek, has predicted that the free online music service will help the industry grow to as much as 10 times its current size, in a future where old distinctions between providers break down.

Having paid out $3bn to music rights holders so far, Spotify is pitching itself as a competitor to traditional broadcasting, having recently added news, weather, podcasts and videos to its service. "The old-world paradigms we used to have are no longer true. When I think about music in the future, I don't make a distinction between what's radio, what used to be the music library, and so on," Ek told the Observer in a rare interview. "It's only going to be listening - and, as that goes forward, this old notion of these different industries or different competitors will collapse and merge together."

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