Indeed. When it started, Spotify populated its beta versions with plenty of MP3s that were only available on The Pirate Bay, had unlicensed music to kick-start the platform [0], and Daniel Ek was the CEO of uTorrent [1] before it was sold to BitTorrent Inc.
Initially Spotify tech was p2p. To quote Rasmus Fleischer, who wrote about Spotify, "Spotify’s beta version was originally a pirate service. It was distributing MP3 files that the employees happened to have on their hard drives." [0]
The company may have turned into a billion-dollar company, with pirate roots. [2]
robtherobber|2 months ago
Initially Spotify tech was p2p. To quote Rasmus Fleischer, who wrote about Spotify, "Spotify’s beta version was originally a pirate service. It was distributing MP3 files that the employees happened to have on their hard drives." [0]
The company may have turned into a billion-dollar company, with pirate roots. [2]
[0] https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...
[1] https://venturebeat.com/technology/grooveshark-hits-back-at-...
[2] https://torrentfreak.com/how-the-pirate-bay-helped-spotify-b...