Iovine: Music streaming economics broke by copying Apple's 70/30 download split
Jimmy Iovine · Jimmy Iovine: Building Interscope Records & Beats by Dre · Feb 1, 2026 · at 4:01
Jimmy Iovine, music executive and co-founder of Interscope Records and Beats, discusses how Daniel Ek negotiated early Spotify streaming license deals with record labels.
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“If you look at those deals are reflective of the iTunes download market, 70, 30. That was the same business as the download market. So they just copied that, which is not a great bit model for that. Why? Because you have Not enough money in the streaming service in order for it to really live.”
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