I'm not greatly sympathetic to the major labels' policies, but I don't see how the "tax" angle makes sense here, even as a metaphor. You can describe something like the patent system as imposing a "tax" on innovation because it in effect adds across-the-board costs to everyone.<p>But here the fee is only being imposed in cases where you actually want to license someone's product! Could I really complain about the "publishers' tax" on my audiobook business, because I can't produce audiobooks of Stephen King without paying him (or his publisher) a fee? And of course they vary the fee based on what they think they can get out of each client; that's standard business practice, which is why many enterprise SaaS providers have a "call for prices" sort of thing if they think you're rich enough.
You could look at it another way: the content owners gave a distributor a break in fees until they found a profitable business model. Then the price break was removed, because <i>most</i> of the value is in the content, not the distribution.
I think spotify needs to develop their own artists somehow, that is the only way I can see this working in the long term.<p>Having said that , I don't really like the idea of having "spotify exclusive" music especially since that would essentially force people into using facebook just to hear a track.<p>Another option would be for artists to sell content directly to services such as spotify on a per play or per month basis.
Meanwhile grooveshark pays nothing, has a wider selection and charges less.<p>Are the labels trying to get others to kick the legit companies out of business?