Criticism of Spotify not think his fans deserved the low quality they were receiving, and said it was bad for his music. Young's music has since returned to Spotify and other streaming services. In response, Spotify claims that they are benefiting the music business by "migrating them away from piracy and less monetized platforms, and allowing them to generate far greater royalties than before" by offering a free, ad-supported service tier, and then encouraging users to opt into the paid subscription. In June 2012, Charles Caldas, CEO of the Merlin Network (a representative body for over 10,000 independent labels), clarified that Spotify pays
CUC International CUC International CUC (Comp-U-Card) International Inc. was a membership-based consumer services conglomerate with travel, shopping, auto, dining, home improvement and financial services offered to more than 60 million customers worldwide based out of Stamford, Connecticut and founded by Kirk Shelton and Walter Forbes. In 1998, it became involved in a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into what, at the time, was the biggest accounting scandal in corporate history. Their main product, a shopping service, originally a membership telephone-based drop-ship service called Comp-U-Card begun in 1973, was made available online to users of The Source in the mid-1980s, and later CompuServe