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 April 2017, the panel was upgraded to leave beta status, renamed as “Spotify for Artists”, and opened to all artists and managers. In March 2009, Spotify began offering music downloads in the United Kingdom, France, and Spain. 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”.
- In March 2021, Spotify announced an upcoming option for higher-resolution sound, Spotify Hi-Fi.
- The United Musicians and Allied Workers campaigns for a fairer redistribution and compensation system for musicians.
- Like HBO Max, YouTube, and Instagram which are also running ads from the campaign, Spotify defended the advertisements by stating they were part of a government campaign, which complied with its ad policies and stated that users could provide feedback or thumbs-down such ads.
- Users find the relevant content to share and press a “soundwave-style barcode” on the display.
- Later that same year, in March, Spotify removed all limits on the free service tier indefinitely, including mobile devices.
- The company is incorporated in Luxembourg as Spotify Technology S.A., and headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with offices in 16 countries around the world.
- The changes faced a mixed reaction from the music industry, who believed that it would be detrimental to emerging musicians, but would make a larger share of total royalty payments available to musicians.
Demus: Easy Music Streaming
Swedish labor disputes are also happening at Tesla and Klarna as of 2024update. Spotify recognizes trade unions at its US podcasting subsidiaries The Ringer and Spotify Studios since 2019. In December 2025, over 300 terabytes of files were scraped from Spotify’s servers and uploaded to Anna’s Archive, totalling 86 million songs uploaded from 2007 to July 2025 that account for 37% of all songs and 99.6% of all listens, as well as 256 million rows of song metadata. Spotify supports integration with DJ software, allowing DJs to mix with music streamed from the platform. The testing was very limited in nature and was only available on Spotify’s Android app in the US. Some artists included in this initial test phase were Steve Aoki and the Wombats.
SharePlay
On 12 September 2019, Spotify acquired SoundBetter, a music production marketplace for people in the music industry to collaborate on projects, and distribute music tracks for licensing. Spotify stated that Sonalytic would be used to improve the company’s personalized playlists, better match songs with compositions, and improve the company’s publishing data system. In June 2015, Spotify announced they had acquired Seed Scientific, a data science consulting firm and analytics company.
- In Spotify’s apps, music can be browsed or searched for via various parameters, such as artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label.
- Spotify has been criticised by artists and producers including Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke, who have argued that Spotify does not fairly compensate musicians, and both withdrew their music from the service.
- In February 2021, Spotify announced their plans to introduce a HiFi subscription, to offer listening in high fidelity, lossless sound quality.
- Spotify stated that Sonalytic would be used to improve the company’s personalized playlists, better match songs with compositions, and improve the company’s publishing data system.
- Users can add tracks to a “Collection” section of the app, rather than adding them to a specific playlist.
- Spotify first announced a voice-activated music-streaming gadget for cars in May 2019.
- In February 2018, Spotify integrated with the gaming-oriented voice chat service Discord on desktop clients, allowing users to display their currently playing song as a rich presence on their profile, and invite other users with Spotify Premium to group “listening parties”.
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. The post stated that all free members would be limited to ten hours of music streaming per month, and in addition, individual tracks were limited to five plays. Spotify has experimented with different limitations to users’ listening on the Free service tier. Users can refine playlists with additional instructions, such as “more upbeat” or “happier songs”. The tool allows users to generate personalized playlists from text prompts describing genres, moods, artists, activities, or creative ideas like animals, movie characters, colors, or emojis. Discovery Mode allows artists who meet certain criteria and have a Spotify For Artists account to submit qualifying songs for Spotify’s in-house promotion services.
In January 2016, Spotify and music annotation service Genius formed a partnership, bringing annotation information from Genius into infocards presented while songs are playing in Spotify. In December 2015, Spotify debuted Spotify Wrapped, a program that creates playlists based on each user’s most listened-to songs from the year. The applications provided features such as synchronised lyrics, music reviews, and song recommendations.
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.
Platform
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.
In 2024, Spotify Wrapped, which has become a key marketing strategy for the company, was criticised for appearing to rely on AI-generated content and producing uninteresting insights. Other artists and podcasters, such as Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, Brené Brown, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash, also announced a boycott of Spotify. He explained, “An extension of the internet radio craze of the early 2000s, Spotify would license content from record labels, and then support artists as people listened to their music.” In March 2021, David Dayen argued in The American Prospect that musicians were in peril due to monopolies in streaming services like Spotify. 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.
Streaming records
On 19 November 2019, Spotify announced the acquisition of the exclusive rights to The Last Podcast on the Left. 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.
Deezer: Music & Podcast Player
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.
User growth continued, reaching 20 million total active users, including five million paying customers globally and one million paying customers in the United States, in December 2012. In February 2017, Spotify announced the expansion of its United States operations in Lower Manhattan, New York City, at 4 World Trade Center, adding approximately 1,000 new jobs and retaining 832 existing positions. Later that same year, in March, Spotify removed all limits on the free service tier indefinitely, including mobile devices. In January 2012, the free trial periods began to expire, limiting users to ten hours of streaming each month and five plays per song. Spotify launched in the United States in July 2011, and offered a six-month, ad-supported trial period, during which new users could listen to an unlimited amount of music for free. Ek first had the idea for Spotify around 2002 when peer-to-peer music service Napster shut down and another illegal site Kazaa became popular.
Using PC streaming, a similar structure to the one used today allowed the listener to play songs freely, but with ads every 4–7 songs depending on listening duration. 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 frostybet casino voiced objections to Spotify’s royalty structure and its effect on record sales. Operating as a freemium service, the basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Spotifya is a Swedish audio streaming and media service provider founded in April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.
Dispute with Apple
In July 2025, several artists joined a boycott of Spotify because Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek raised another $600 million in support of German defense company Helsing through his investment fund. On 26 January, Neil Young removed his music from Spotify after they refused to remove the podcast. This policy was revoked in June because the company deemed the original wording to be too “vague”; they stated that “Across all genres, our role is not to regulate artists. Therefore, we are moving away from implementing a policy around artist conduct”.
In November 2021, Spotify hid the “shuffle” button for albums following a request by singer Adele, arguing that tracks in albums are supposed to be played back in the order specified by the artist to “tell a story”. In September 2020, Spotify, Epic, and other companies founded The Coalition for App Fairness, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in app stores. In 2019, under iOS 13, it became possible to play Spotify music using Siri commands. Additionally, Apple stated that they have attempted to work with Spotify to integrate the service better with Apple’s products, such as Siri and Apple Watch. Two days later, Apple responded, stating that the claim was misleading rhetoric and that Spotify wanted benefits of a free app without being a free app.
