Apple iTunes and Spotify, two online music behemoths

Launched in October 2008, the Swedish outfit, Spotify is the world’s largest music subscription company on the Internet. The commercial music streaming service provides content from famous music labels including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal. According to publicly available information it had more than 10 million users at the end of 2010 and more than 2.5 million of them were paying customers and by the end of 2012 its customer base reached over 20 million. More than five million of them pay a monthly subscription fee now.

It’s music available for PCs, smartphones, tablets and other devices through variety of operating systems. Anyone can browse by artist, album, record label, genre, or even by a play list. Upon activation, you can get a free three-month subscription through Facebook. Spotify’s co-founder Daniel Ek has been credited for the creation of the service through Facebook. Spotify is being considered a formidable contender for the Apple’s iTunes.

Piracy has been the main threat to the music industry for some time. Apple made an advance towards stopping piracy and Spotify has been credited for making piracy more difficult and saving and increasing record sales.