Indie pulls 200 labels from Spotify

UK firm STHoldings is also withdrawing from Rdio, Napster, and Simfy.

The move comes amid a rising tide of discomfort with the business models offered by streaming music services.

STHoldings has been pretty withering about the payouts – which it estimates at £0.006 a track – and the effect that the free play model has on the perception of music's value.

A statement on its site said: “Despite these services offering promotion to many millions of music listeners, we have concerns that these services cannibalise the revenues of more traditional digital services.

“They provide poor revenue and have a detrimental affect on sales,. Add to that, the feeling that their music loses its specialness by its exploitation as a low value/free commodity. Quoting one of our labels “Let’s keep the music special, f*ck Spotify.”

It also came up with a formula to value modern music that compared streaming with toilet paper.