Spotify on the future of streaming music: ‘We want to cannibalize piracy’

Today’s the transition day between SXSW Interactive and the start of the much larger and arguably more interesting SXSW Music festival, so it’s only fitting that Spotify, Rdio, and turntable.fm all held events and keynotes this morning. But while Rdio launched a total redesign and turntable.fm announced a series of major label deals, Spotify’s chief content officer Ken Parks instead held a thoughtful panel called “The Future of Music” with Billboard editorial director Bill Werde and Disturbed singer David Draiman. The contrast was stark: while Rdio is in the middle of a full-on competitive reinvention and turntable.fm is just signing the paperwork that enables its business, Spotify is talking about nothing less than saving the music industry from itself.