A key question we get asked by independent artists is, “How can I get my music onto Spotify?” It’s actually pretty easy and inexpensive to do that. And the next question is, “How much will I earn?” The amount that artists receive from Spotify is a hot topic, of interest to artists and fans alike. The short answer to the question is, “Not a lot,” but earnings aren’t everything when it comes to receiving the wide exposure that Spotify availability can generate.

Ditto Music is a service that allows artists to set up their own record label and release their music via digital stores and streaming services. Basic charges are 30p per track per store or service, and £5.00 for track storage, plus extra charges for services such as chart registration. So it’s possible to get your track available on Spotify for £5.30, or on iTunes and Spotify for £5.60. But how much will you earn?

The company is pretty upfront about potential earnings. Download stores take around a 40% commission, so a track sold for 79p via iTunes should earn the artist 49p.

For Spotify, the artist earns 0.02p per play. That means you’ll need 50 plays to earn 1p, 5,000 plays to earn £1, or half a million plays to earn £100. You’ll also get a percentage of advertising revenue, but we can safely assume that this will be even more negligible than play royalties.

Of course, that amount just represents Ditto Music’s deal. Other companies will have individual deals and receive differing amounts. Last September, Robert Fripp, the former King Crimson guitarist, revealed in his online diary that Island Records received £1.68 from Spotify for 618 streams. That’s 0.2p per play – ten times the amount Ditto Music artists receive, although obviously Island artists will need to give their label a cut of that.

It’s still not a large amount, and certainly not enough for Robert Fripp – King Crimson’s tracks have since been removed. You really need to be the likes of The Black Eyed Peas or Lady Gaga, with your tracks being streamed millions of times, to earn significant money from Spotify.

But, as we’ve said here before, the way to make money from Spotify is not by relying on royalties, but by using it as a promotional tool to encourage physical sales, including merchandise and tickets. Readers of this blog post who might have been prompted to check out King Crimson on Spotify, and perhaps go on to buy the albums, cannot do so. They can, however, check out The Black Eyed Peas or Lady Gaga.

Releasing your music on Spotify via Ditto Music won’t make you a millionaire, but it will get you music out there, maybe get it heard, and that’s a valuable starting point for any artist.

So you love listening to Spotify on your desktop, and you can put up with the adverts and lower streaming quality, and don’t need the offline mode, so haven’t upgraded to Premium? Fair enough. But by not upgrading to Premium you’re missing out on Spotify’s killer feature – Spotify Mobile. Putting Spotify in your pocket, Spotify Mobile is the essential reason to go Premium. Here are ten reasons why you need Spotify Mobile:

1. It’s free… As long as you have Spotify Premium. Get the app here.
2. It offers access to the entire Spotify catalogue, instantly, via your mobile phone. What’s not to like about that?
3. It’s available on iPhone, Android and Symbian (including Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung) handsets. Get a full list of compatible handsets here.
4. The offline mode allows you to store 3,333 tracks on your mobile and listen to them at any time, even when you have no internet connection. That’s a huge catalogue of downloaded tracks stored on your phone.
5. The Spotify app is simple and easy to use. Features vary slightly by handset, but you can enjoy almost all of the features of the desktop version, including instant playback.
6. Sound quality, at 160kbps Ogg Vorbis (roughly equal to 192kbps mp3 and the same as Spotify Free on desktop), is very good. It’s not as high as the 320kbps Premium users enjoy on desktop, but it compares excellently against mp3s played on mobiles, and for example Spotify Mobile on the iPhone offers a better sound experience than the device’s iPod function.
7. Spotify Mobile streams over wi-fi or 2.5/3G brilliantly. Download of offline content is obviously much faster over wi-fi, but Spotify works great for those relying on 3G too.
8. Syncing between the Spotify desktop client and mobile app is instant, and very impressive. Basically, add or amend a playlist on your desktop, and it will update on your mobile – and vice versa.
9. Cover art – a longstanding annoyance for iTunes and iPod users – is never a problem on Spotify Mobile, with large, high quality cover images attached to every track in the catalogue.
10. The ability to force offline mode means you can listen to your offline content without worrying about data charges, for example when travelling abroad. You can listen to your offline content for 30 days without going back online.

In putting instant access to a huge music catalogue into your pocket, Spotify Mobile is changing the future of music consumption. There are still improvements to be made, for example the Spotify apps do not yet scrobble to Last.fm, but these are minor quibbles considering the benefits the service provides. Overall, if you like music, have a compatible mobile, and live in an area where Spotify is available, Spotify Mobile is completely essential.

The latest update of AVG anti virus software is wrongly flagging up Spotify as a security threat, or runtime themida virus. Worry not – your PC has not been infected. This is a problem with AVG and should be solved in a subsequent update. Until then, Andres from Spotify has posted the following solution here:

1 open AVG user interface (right click on icon in systray at bottom right)
2 components -> resident shield
3 click manage exceptions
4 click Excluded files, click Add
5 browse to c:\Program Files\Spotify\spotify.exe click open
6 spotify.exe appears in the list with a selected tickbox – click apply
AVG should now ignore spotify.exe