Rockfreaks.net

STHoldings Limited, a music distributor for over 200 independent record labels, have pulled all of their artists from Spotify, the freemium music streaming service, as well as Napster, Rdio, and Simfy.

The company goes on to state:

STHoldings can confirm that we have taken the decision to remove all STHoldings distributed content from the following music services, Spotify, Simfy, Rdio & Napster.

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. These concerns are confirmed in our own accounts and a recent study by NPD Group and NARM

As a distributor we have to do what is best for our labels. The majority of which do not want their music on such 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, fuck Spotify”

All the labels we represent have been given the choice to have their music to Spotify, Simfy, Rdio & Napster. As of today (16.11.11) from the 200+ labels we distribute, 4 have expressed that they would like to be on these services.

More analysis is available here.