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.
Unionization
Spotify intended to use MightyTV to improve its advertising efforts on the free tier of service. In March 2017, Spotify acquired Sonalytic, an audio detection startup, for an undisclosed amount of money. This approach is not intended to raise fresh capital, but to let investors get their returns.
Contents
- In January 2021, Spotify made a selection of audiobooks available on the platform as a test of developing a greater breadth of content for users.
- Pelly advocated for a move away from the current royalty model that says the artists who people listen to the most should make the most money toward a more generalized approach where the decision for who gets paid rests with industry or government bodies, not audiences.
- Of that amount, about 58.5% of its total revenue goes to the owners of sound recording copyrights, and the other 12% goes to the owners of musical compositions.
- In March 2016, Spotify launched six playlists branded as Fresh Finds, including the main playlist and Fire Emoji, Basement, Hiptronix, Six Strings, and Cyclone (hip-hop, electronic, pop, guitar-driven, and experimental music respectively).
- 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.
- 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.
- Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it temporarily closed its office in Russia and indefinitely suspended all of its services in the country.
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 April, Spotify announced a discounted entertainment bundle with video-on-demand provider Hulu, which included discounted rates for university students. In December, Spotify and Tencent's music arm, Tencent Music Entertainment (TME), agreed to swap stakes and make an investment in each other's music businesses. The WNYC Studios partnership brought various podcasts from WNYC to Spotify, including Note to Self, On the Media and Here's the Thing. Two more partnerships were announced in March; one with WNYC Studios, and one with Waze. PlayStation Music incorporates the Spotify service into Sony's PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles, and Sony Xperia mobile devices.
Daniel Ek's initial pitch to Lorentzon was not initially related to music, but rather a way for streaming content such as video, digital films, images or music to drive advertising revenue. While certain musicians laud the service for offering a lawful option to combat piracy and for remunerating artists each time their music is played, others have voiced objections to Spotify's royalty structure and its effect on record sales. It offers some social media features such as messaging, creating profiles, following friends, shared playlists, and creating listening parties called "Jams."
The most commonly perceived error is said to be caused by a lack of diverse scope within curation staff, including overlooking mainstay artists in large genres, potentially causing a categorical homogenization of musical styles; even impacting mainline artists like within hip hop with A Tribe Called Quest. According to some computer science and music experts, various music communities are often ignored or overlooked by music streaming services such as Spotify. The primary point of criticism centers around what artists, music creators, and the media have described as "unsustainable" compensation. Spotify Wrapped had generated two billion impressions worldwide, and more ninety million Spotify users share their Spotify Wrapped statistics online, especially through social media. Spotify also has a 'blend' feature in which two users' music preferences are mixed in a shared playlist. Spotify had added social playjohnny casino registration media-related features to its platform, especially to compete for ad revenue and to increase its media-related users.
In January 2014, Spotify removed all time limits for Free users on all platforms, including on computers, which previously had a 10-hour monthly listening limit after a 6-month grace period. Ek stated that "We're giving people the best free music experience in the history of the smartphone." This limitation does not apply to Android and iOS tablets, or computers. 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 April 2011, Spotify announced via a blog post that they would drastically cut the amount of music that free members could access, effective 1 May 2011. Spotify has experimented with different limitations to users' listening on the Free service tier. In April 2025, Spotify expanded its AI Playlist beta feature to Premium listeners in over 40 new English-speaking markets, including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean.
In November 2023, Spotify announced a new royalty model taking effect in 2024, aiming to reduce the amount of "fraudulent" royalties collected from "functional" non-music tracks with short lengths (such as environmental sounds and white noise). Spotify generates revenue by selling premium streaming subscriptions to users and advertising placements to third parties. In May 2023, Spotify removed tens of thousands of songs, roughly 7% of the tracks uploaded by the Boomy, due to suspected "artificial streaming", the practice of using online bots to inflate the listening statistics.
Streaming records
- Another source of income was music purchases from within the app, however this service was removed in January 2013.
- In 2019, under iOS 13, it became possible to play Spotify music using Siri commands.
- Spotify provides artists taking part in RADAR with resources and access to integrated marketing opportunities to help them boost their careers, in addition to expanded reach and exposure to 178 markets worldwide.
- In April, Spotify announced a discounted entertainment bundle with video-on-demand provider Hulu, which included discounted rates for university students.
- In February 2020, Spotify announced it was acquiring The Ringer, and inheriting the previously established union.
- Uploading was free and artists received 100% of the revenue from songs they uploaded; artists were able to control when their release went public.
On 26 January, Neil Young removed his music from Spotify after they refused to remove the podcast. Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify, discussed "what he called an artist-friendly streaming solution". However, artists such as Gary Glitter and Lostprophets are still hidden from Spotify's radio stations.
Accounts and subscriptions
The company was, according to TechCrunch, planning to launch on the stock market in 2017, but in 2017 it was seen as planning on doing the IPO in 2018 to "build up a better balance sheet and work on shifting its business model to improve its margins". In April 2015, Spotify began another round of fundraising, with a report from The Wall Street Journal stating it was seeking $400 million (equivalent to $515,700,000 in 2024), which would value the company at $8.4 billion (equivalent to $10,831,000,000 in 2024). In February 2010, Spotify received a small investment from Founders Fund, where board member Sean Parker was recruited to assist Spotify in "winning the labels over in the world's largest music market". 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 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 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. In June 2022, Spotify acquired Sonantic, a synthetic voice and video developer. 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 November 2020, Spotify announced plans to acquire Megaphone from The Slate Group for US$235 million.
The aim was to help users to listen to the music they want without information overload or spending time building their own playlists. The ability to purchase and download music tracks via the app was removed on 4 January 2013. Another source of income was music purchases from within the app, however this service was removed in January 2013. In November 2018, Spotify announced it was opening up Spotify Connect to all of the users using its Free service, however, these changes still required products supporting Spotify Connect to support the latest software development kit.
Acquisitions, podcasting and exclusivity deals
For example, Lil Nas X's Old Town Road and Doja Cat's Say So started their popularity through Tik Tok but through Spotify playlists had their popularity accelerated. Artists through social media platforms, especially TikTok, often got their popularity boost through Spotify. Artists through Spotify can sell tickets to their music venue, promote their merchandise, add their videos as stories through Spotify clips, and promote new releases of their work through countdown pages. Ahead of Spotify Wrapped 2024, Spotify changed its API so that modded versions of the client would not work.
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 February 2009, Spotify opened public registration for the free service tier in the United Kingdom. According to Ek, the company's title was initially misheard from a name shouted by Lorentzon. Spotify is listed (through a Luxembourg City–domiciled holding company, Spotify Technology S.A.) on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts.
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. 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. Spotify's terms and conditions do not permit users to reverse-engineer the application.