ICED EARTH: We Had Nothing To Do With CENTURY MEDIA's Decision To Pull Our Music From SPOTIFY

Jon Schaffer, founder and creative force behind American metal icons ICED EARTH, has released a statement regarding the recent decision by the band's record label, Century Media, to pull its repertoire from streaming music service Spotify in an attempt "to protect the interests of their artists."

"A lot of fans have contacted us regarding Century Media's decision to pull all of its bands from Spotify," Schaffer said. "I want our fans to know that we had nothing to do with that decision.

"We understand Century Media's position. The music industry has been deeply and irrevocably affected by illegal downloading on the Internet. I understand that all too well. In fact, all professional musicians today understand that. But Spotify is one of the most important developments in music I've seen in quite awhile. It allows fans to search for music from bands all over the world sometimes rare, impossible-to-find, or out-of-print music. They hear it, decide they like it, and seek it out to buy it from a variety of sources legal sources like iTunes, Amazon, or Amazon Marketplace.

"That's a good thing. Stealing music is not. But sampling it on Spotify which is legal and highly regarded worldwide is not stealing it.

"If it were up to me, I'd put ICED EARTH's music back on Spotify. But I also have to respect the wishes of Century Media, our record label. They're only trying to protect the best interests of their bands.

"So, I ask fans of ICED EARTH to be respectful as well. Maybe additional dialogue with Century Media will change their minds. In the meantime, let's all just agree to disagree on this one and wait to see what the future holds."

The U.S. version of Spotify, which gives its users access to all the songs in its cloud to organize into playlists and listen to as they please, has reportedly attracted 1.4 million registered users so far in spite of its current invite-only status. Of those users, roughly 175,000 are said to be "paying users." In Europe, where Spotify has been available in seven countries since its launch in 2008, the company currently has around 1.6 million paying users, according to published reports.

According to the an infographic on the Information Is Beautiful web site, which visualizes the different monetization methods available to artists and how profitable they are, if you are a solo musician, at $0.00029 per play on Spotify, you will have to receive 4,053,110 plays per month to earn the U.S. minimum wage of $1,160.