Pandora, iHeartRadio can stream songs from Adele's top-selling album 25, unlike Spotify, Apple Music, others, thanks to law for “non-interactive” services
Jacob Kastrenakes / The Verge :
Context & Ripple Effects
When sources told the New York Times that Adele would keep her album off streaming services at launch, the assumption was a total blackout. The follow-up reporting shows the blackout is partial, and the dividing line is legal rather than commercial: US compulsory licensing lets non-interactive radio like Pandora and iHeartRadio play 25, while on-demand services like Spotify and Apple Music need direct deals they apparently don't have.
First-order effects
- Spotify and Apple Music subscribers who want 25 have to buy it elsewhere, while Pandora and iHeartRadio listeners get the year's biggest album in their normal radio rotation — a listening-hours windfall for the two non-interactive players.
Second-order effects
- Spotify's reported move to let some musicians temporarily withhold music from its ad-supported tier reads as a direct accommodation of this playbook — trading full-catalog completeness to keep big releases on the paid tier.
Third-order effects
- If withholding works commercially, the compulsory license that protects non-interactive radio becomes a structural wedge: artists gain a legal fallback that weakens on-demand platforms' negotiating position over release windows, pushing windowing toward standard practice.
The trend: Major artists are exploiting the split between interactive and non-interactive streaming licenses to negotiate release windows, forcing platforms like Spotify to soften their all-or-nothing catalog stance.