The growth in music streaming last year was “completely dominated” in Australia by Spotify, according to the company’s Director of Economics Will Page.
 
One in six Australians currently use spotify.
 
Speaking at Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Copyright Forum earlier this week he said the reasons Spotify has been so successful are that it has the right price and the right product.
 
“It’s a lot faster to get content from Spotify then from pirate sites,” he said (watch the video below from about 24 mins in).
 
Spotify calims it is helping to reduce piracy, with a 20% reduction in music piracy volume in Australia since the Spotify service was introduced.
 
At the BigSound Music Conference in Brisbane today, Page told delegates it will take some time to break people from their piracy habits, but that services such as Spotify which make it easy to get music at a competitive price will assist in making a change if the online industry is unified in its approach.
 
He told the conference: “Let’s be clear, Australia still faces a massive challenge in turning around its much talked about media piracy challenge, and it always has, and always will, take a combination of public policy and superior legal offerings.”
 
The five most popular Australian acts on Spotify are Flume, Vance joy, Iggy Azalea, Sia and Bliss N Eso.