It’s now being reported that Netflix will air an as-yet-unnamed dramatic limited series about how Spotify became one of the world’s premiere music services.
The series will be based upon the book Spotify Untold, which was written by Sven Carlsson and Jonas Leijonhufvud. Berna Levin, whose credits include Young Wallander, Hidden and The Girl in the Spider’s Web, will serve as the series’ executive producer. She says that the “story of how a small band of Swedish tech industry insiders transformed music – how we listen to it and how it’s made – is truly a tale for our time.”
The show will follow Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon, who changed the music industry forever by offering users legally streamed music at a time when the music industry was desperately trying to combat piracy. These days, music piracy is in a tailspin, thanks largely to lower-cost streaming options like Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and SoundCloud.
Netflix says that the show, which will be filmed in both English and Swedish, will be “about how hard convictions, unrelenting will, access, and big dreams can help small players challenge the status quo by evolving the way we can all listen to music.”
In August of this year, Yellow Bird U.K. announced that they had optioned Spotify Untold and had planned to adapt it into a dramatic television series.
Yellow Bird is one of the leading television production companies in Europe, with operations in the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. They have previously produced Young Wallander, the Millennium trilogy, Headhunters, and Occupied.
At the time the book was optioned, Leijonhufvud said, “The rise of Spotify is one of the greatest stories to come out of Sweden in the past 10 years. It’s a saga of a young founder who came out of nowhere and beat Apple at their own game.”
As a Professional musician I don’t ever remember being asked if free (stolen) music was okay by me. When budgets went from $250,000 down to zero do you think the fans understand that the quality of music might be affected? With more than 50% of Pro musicians quitting the business followed by millions of Hobbyists flooding the market with mostly dreadful music you think the true music fans would start to realize that quality music costs a lot of money to record. And now fans contact me asking when my next album will be released? Guess they expect me to spend months in my studio for no money. Great incentive to make new music. While my monthly bills stack up and I fall behind on my Mortgage and car payment? I recently took all my music OFF SPOTIFY and OFF YOUTUBE and I suggest all the musicians should do the same. Not supporting Mr. Ek while he makes more millions while so many musicians are losing their homes in foreclosure and busking on the streets to survive