Can Spotify Satisfy American Copyright Laws?

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Lots of friends and colleagues from abroad have hyped up Spotify to me, and I don’t doubt that it’s an awesome service. As we hear more about Spotify, especially involving mobile apps and in-car services, I fear we might be getting ahead of ourselves. Specifically, I worry that users’ fervor for the system overlooks the core reason why similar concepts have failed in the U.S.: the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The law was written during a time before iPod, in an era where it still seemed plausible that record companies could wield enough power to prevent users from finding content on demand without owning it first…