This approach is not intended to raise fresh capital, but to let investors get their returns. The Financial Times reported in March 2017 that, as part of its efforts to renegotiate new licensing deals with music labels, Spotify and major record labels had agreed that Spotify would restrict some newly released albums to its Premium tier, with Spotify receiving a reduction in royalty fees to do so. In countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, Spotify registered a fall in users in late February, but it has seen a recovery. On 19 June 2018, XXXTentacion’s hit single “Sad!” broke Swift’s single-day streaming record, amassing 10.4 million streams the day after he was fatally shot in Florida. A month later, Spotify announced that “Lean On” by Major Lazer and DJ Snake featuring MØ was its most-streamed song of all time with over 525 million streams worldwide. Registrations surged following the release of the mobile service, leading Spotify to halt registration for the free service in September, returning the UK to an invitation-only policy.
In response to the allegations about unfair compensation, Spotify claims that it is benefitting the industry by migrating users away from unauthorized copying and less monetized platforms to its free service tier, and then downgrades that service until they upgrade to paid accounts. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights-holders, who will then pay artists based on their individual agreements. Despite the extensive global coverage, the service remains unavailable in several countries and territories, including Afghanistan, British Indian Ocean Territory, Central African Republic, China, Cuba, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Turkmenistan, and Yemen. Among them is an increased lack of non-online social spaces, an increased lack of privacy from strangers, and a source of unbridled expression particularly with its media-related podcasts. Spotify users can also ‘jam’ sessions where users can create and contribute live music playing sessions with their Spotify friends. In April 2014, Spotify moved away from the peer-to-peer (P2P) system they had used to distribute music to users.

Accounts and subscriptions

• Spotify had added social media-related features to its platform, especially to compete for ad revenue and to increase its media-related users.
• The following November, the company began rolling out a web player, with a similar design to its computer programs, but without the requirement of any installation.
• In April 2014, Spotify moved away from the peer-to-peer (P2P) system they had used to distribute music to users.
• Additional features include the ability to get “verified” status with a blue checkmark on an artist’s profile, receiving artist support from Spotify, customising the profile page with photos and promoting a certain song as their “pick”.
• In 2013, Spotify revealed that it paid artists an average of $0.007 per stream.
• In 2023, Spotify merged Anchor into their Spotify for Podcasters tool, a rebranding move and to organize its tools for creating, managing, growing, and monetizing their content in one place.

The Waze partnership allows Waze app users to view directions to destinations within the Spotify app and access their Spotify playlists through the Waze app. Spotify also announced that the third season of WNYC Studios’ 2 Dope Queens podcast would premiere with a two-week exclusivity period on the service on 21 March 2017. The integration also enabled Spotify within the SXSW GO app to help users discover and explore artists performing at the conference. In January 2015, Sony announced PlayStation Music, a new music service with Spotify as its exclusive partner. In November 2021, Spotify acquired audiobook company Findaway, including its publishing imprint OrangeSky Audio.

• A camera icon in the apps’ search fields lets other users point their device’s camera at the code, which takes them to the same content.
• In June 2012, Soundrop became the first Spotify app to attract major funding, receiving $3 million (equivalent to $4,039,000 in 2024) from Spotify investor Northzone.
• Furthermore, he stated that “There is nothing in Apple’s conduct that ‘amounts to a violation of applicable antitrust laws.’ Far from it. … I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store’s rules”.
• In March 2013, the five-play individual track limit was removed for users in the United Kingdom, and media reports stated that users in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand never had the limit in the first place.
• In November 2021, Spotify acquired audiobook company Findaway, including its publishing imprint OrangeSky Audio.

Trending Music Player

One year later, in 31 cities worldwide, 27,500 musicians joined UMAW’s campaign #JusticeAtSpotify to demand a compensation of one cent per audio stream. The United Musicians and Allied Workers campaigns for a fairer redistribution and compensation system for musicians. In November 2022, Henry Catalini Smith, a Spotify engineer in Malmö, set up the channel #kollektivavtal in the internal company Slack, which means “collective agreement” in Swedish.

Social Media

In 2023, Spotify launched additional features to help independent artists distributing their music on the platform reach a wider array of potential fans. This feature allows two or more Premium users in the same location to share control over the music that is being played. In 2016, Spotify introduced its Daily Mix feature, which creates playlists of music that a user has previously listened to on the platform.In 2017, Spotify introduced RapCaviar, a hip-hop playlist. In August 2016, Spotify launched Release Radar, a personalized playlist that allows users to stay up-to-date on new music released by the artists they listen to the most.
In a further escalation of the dispute with Apple, on 13 March 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission over unfair app store practices. Spotify released the first version of its Apple Watch app in November 2018, allowing playback control of the iPhone via the watch. Furthermore, he stated that “There is nothing in Apple’s conduct that ‘amounts to a violation of applicable antitrust laws.’ Far from it. … I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store’s rules”. Listeners will be able to link their Spotify to ChatGPT, asking it to find anything from a specific playlist to a podcast topic. In May 2020, Spotify teamed up with ESPN and Netflix to curate podcasts around their Michael Jordan documentary The Last Dance, and in September, Spotify signed a deal with Chernin Entertainment to produce movies and TV shows.
The feature is powered by lyrics providers Musixmatch and PetitLyrics ja (only in Japan). The following November, the company began rolling out a web player, with a similar design to its computer programs, but without the requirement of any installation. In June 2012, Soundrop became the first Spotify app to attract major funding, receiving $3 million (equivalent to $4,039,000 in 2024) from Spotify investor Northzone.

Artificial streams

In February 2020, Spotify announced it would be featuring new songwriter pages and ‘written by’ playlists. In June 2017, Variety reported that Spotify would announce “Secret Genius”, a new initiative aimed at highlighting songwriters and producers, and the effect those people have on the music industry and the artists’ careers. On 1 July 2019, Spotify deprecated the program and announced plans to stop accepting direct uploads by the end of that month and eventually remove all content uploaded in this manner. Uploading was free and artists received 100% of the revenue from songs they uploaded; artists were able to control when their release went public. The feature was rolled out to a small number of US-based artists by invitation only. In September 2018, Spotify announced “Upload Beta”, allowing artists to upload directly to the platform instead of going through a distributor or record label.
The subscription costs $0.99 and is supposed to be a combination of the free and premium tiers. On September 10, 2025, it was announced that Lossless would be rolling out to Premium listeners gradually to more than 50 markets through October. Spotify introduced a Family subscription in October 2014, which allows up to 5 family members to have a premium subscription.

The WNYC Studios partnership brought various podcasts from WNYC to Spotify, including Note to Self, On the Media and Here’s the Thing. In October 2022, Spotify acquired the Dublin-based content moderation startup, Kinzen. In July 2022, Spotify acquired Heardle, a Wordle-inspired music trivia game, for an undisclosed amount; Heardle was shut down in May 2023. Armchair Expert announced on Instagram that the podcast would be available exclusively on Spotify beginning 1 July, saying they would continue to maintain the same creative control over the show after the move. In March 2021, Spotify acquired app developer Betty Labs and their live social audio app, Locker Room, On 12 May 2021. On 19 May 2020, Spotify acquired exclusive rights to stream the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience beginning in September of that year, under an agreement valued at around US$100 million (equivalent to $119,100,000 in 2024).

Deezer: Music & Podcast Player

In April 2017, they acquired Mediachain, a blockchain startup that had been developing a decentralized database system for managing attribution, and other metadata for media. In a comment to TechCrunch, Spotify said that Seed Scientific’s team would lead an advanced analytics unit within the company, focused on developing data services. On 3 July 2020, cybersecurity firm VPNMentor discovered a database containing 380 million individual records, including the logins and passwords of Spotify users. It was announced later in April that this type of agreement would be extended to indie artists signed to the Merlin Network agency. New reports in April confirmed that Spotify and Universal Music Group had reached an agreement to allow artists part of Universal to limit their new album releases to the Premium service tier for a maximum of two weeks.
Billboard estimated that the changes will pay songwriters and publishers $150 million less “from premium, duo and family plans for the first 12 months that this is in effect, compared to what they would have earned if these three subscriptions were never bundled.” The “deeper” loss frostybet casino came as a result of the company’s tax debt to over one-third of its employees in Sweden. Years after growth and expansion, a November 2012 report suggested strong momentum for the company. In 2008, just after launch, the company made a loss of 31.8 million Swedish kronor (US$4.4 million). The company reported that the tier conditions may change before its full launch.