Spotify - anyone heard of it?

my bad it was UP i meant. it's weird innit.

was only a matter of time :

http://musically.com/blog/2011/04/14/spotify-cuts-back-free-service-10hrs-a-month-and-song-capping/

Does this still count if you're one of the original Spotify Free users?

hope so. then it will stop my teenkid killing the bandwidth soakup in my house.

Should read more closely:

The changes we’re having to make will mainly affect heavier Spotify Free and Open users

What’s more, they’ll only be able to play individual tracks five times ever, before they are made greyed out and unplayable.

There's just no easy money to be made in this industry. Oh well, was a good thing while it lasted.

From a pesronal pov this sucks, but if it's what they need to do to make the service work then so be it.

Actually if they can reassure Premium users that the service will remain the same and more music will be added in the long term I think I'd be willing to pay for it. If au contraire premium users end up seeing less artists and unavailable songs after a while then it will become progressively worthless.
Spain still doesn't seem to have the 20 hour limit tho, so maybe we'll be lucky and we wont be seeing any of these changes just yet.

"What’s more, they’ll only be able to play individual tracks five times ever, before they are made greyed out and unplayable" ... "Spotify says the changes will mainly affect heavier free users, and claims the average user won’t see the limit on plays for seven out of 10 tracks."

This is an interesting idea on their part, I guess. I mean, I feel like people who will i. find this inconvenient enough to do something about it ii. start maintaining an mp3 collection or alt-tabbing to youtube all the time rather than paying £5/month ... these are people that, really, they're never going to convert to a paid account. But, also, it means the word-of-mouth goes from "you really should get Spotify" to "Spotify is kind of annoying."

oh, here is a quick question! there's a label which is greying out all tracks more than ten minutes long by, at least, Sonic Youth and Rush — I'm on Unlimited — can anyone on Premium tell me if that holds true?

The question people need to ask that maybe they didn't have to before is: is it worth a tenner?

For me, the price of mobile Spotify and not having to faff around with 'alternative' online sources is well worth it.

oh, here is a quick question! there's a label which is greying out all tracks more than ten minutes long by, at least, Sonic Youth and Rush — I'm on Unlimited — can anyone on Premium tell me if that holds true?

Seems they're greyed out on premium as well.

yeah, one playlist I had was based on the content of the "Factory Records" box set, and now around 30% of that one is greyed out, not necessarily based on length or famousness...

e.g. Transmission is alright, "Sketch for Summer" and "She's lost control" is gorn.

Quick question: if I pay for Spotify premium, can I listen through my iPod touch?

Yes. Mostly. It won't run on first gen.

http://www.spotify.com/int/help/faq/mobile/mobile-ipod-touch/

Cool. That's a good enough reason for me to pay for it.

It is absolutely, 100% worth a tenner a month.

I've been listening to it all day, every day in work for the last 9 months or so, so I've got no problem with a £10 a month

I can't listen to music at work (it's not a company policy, I just can't do it myself I'd just do nowt), so I do record stuff onto minidisc for the journeys.

whatdisc?

It is absolutely, 100% worth a tenner a month.

Co-sign, I'm as tight as two coats of paint, but this is an absolute bargain and if you have a suitable mobile or ipod touch even more so.

getting spotify on my mobile made an absolutely gigantic difference to the amount of music i discover week in week out. it's a bargain for the ten quid, plus the ads are a distant memory.

yeah i'm on the five pound version 'cuz i don't have unlimited data on my mobile (dark ages, i know) but given i probably use it for around forty hours a week that seemed fair

someone started giving me an earful on supporting THE MAN rather than ARTISTS about it though

was on the 5 pound version until yesterday, new phone so might as well go with premium. can't understand why anyone would use the free version at all though.

Because it's free?

Currently on the £5 version but when I get a new phone I'll probably upgrade.

someone started giving me an earful on supporting THE MAN rather than ARTISTS about it though

me too...bastards.

Would totally pay £15-20 a month for a super premium record club account if they picked out the album you listened to the most in the past month and sent you a copy on CD to keep.

"Here is your monthly copy of Disintegration,
love
Spotify Record Club
PS Change the fucking record son!"

someone started giving me an earful on supporting THE MAN rather than ARTISTS about it though

Surely it's up to the ARTISTS to agree a better deal with THE MAN though?

exactly

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/rorycellanjones/2011/04/spotify_not_so_free_as_it_was.html

....
But I'm hearing that Spotify had the move forced upon it by the record labels and the move reflects continuing tension between the fast-growing digital service and the music industry

it's hard to feel hard-done-by about this. i pay more than a tenner for the use of about eight dvds a month, so getting a spotify subscriptch is a nob rainer.

Actually this may actually be genius. Yes, some people are angry because nothing is completely free anymore, but a lot of people have grown addicted to Spotify and the monthly fee is actually not much compared to what people used to buy CDs for in the past. So this may well be the way for tomorrow's musicians to actually earn money from their work. Which I think they do actually deserve.

and no more blokely.com adverts hooray

until the £10 service gets some adverts and they want you to pay £20 to get no adverts and flacs streaming

I think that would be very difficult for them to implement without losing a shit-ton of customers. Especially given there'll be other similar services on the market before long.

This all made the front page of the Metro today!

I have premium and have it on the missus' & my phone, with both our laptops and the squeezeradio in the kitchen.

that's unlimited music on 5 devices in high quality .mp3 with no adverts or usage limits.

£10.

Can't complain when I have been known to drop £18 on an import CD when Tower Records used to regularly charge such a price.

still working out my "I love this on spotify, I'll buy it" vs. "I love this on spotify, I'll listen to it loads on spotify" threshold though.

i don't have a fancy mobile so am probably just going the £5 route

though what is 'offline mode'? i was talking to someone about this and they claimed it meant they just had a shit-tonne of music files they could listen to. but that can't be right, surely they must all vanish when you unsubscribe?

yeah, they're cached in the Spotify client/ app, then get deleted as and when you unsubscribe AFAIK. I wonder if anyone's cracked the app though?

Offline mode files disappear if you unsubscribe/don't log in for a month. You need it for mobiles cos you can't stream everything, but if you're only using an always online laptop I don't see the point.

It hasn't been cracked yet afaik. That would pretty much kill the service, surely.

Does non-premium spotify play local files too? That was such a good addition. I never switch out of Spotify for any listening now. £10 a month for this is stupidly good value.

is anyone's spotify sync for the iphone haywire as all hell of late? i can't get it to sync properly or save playlists offline, it's really annoying.

I actually hope the wee girl Amy dies

Yeah, I had that. Have had it for a while in fact. Friend of mine had a similar problem on Android and said logging out of everywhere you've got it installed, then logging back in works for him, but I'm still having problems.

xpost!

it's saving tracks now but SO SO SLOW

wonder if deleting some playlists might help

I deleted a lot and it didn't seem to make any difference to the new playlists I had in place.

Any of you guys even heard of Wimp? The thing is a Norwegian owned Spotify-copy. If I become premium, I might as well sign up for Wimp instead, as it seems to have a somewhat bigger selection of music (the main different being Norwegian titles - even Hongroe ;) - but it has the same general iTunes/Phonofile selection that Spotify does)

Spotify says hello to the iPod
May 4th, 2011

At Spotify it's always been our mission to provide you with the best all-round music experience on the planet. For Spotify Premium subscribers, a huge part of that experience is taking your playlists with you wherever you go. However, for the rest of our users, listening to their favourite playlists on the move hasn't been possible.

You've been telling us how much you love discovering, sharing and talking about music in Spotify - and you've created well over 200 million playlists to prove it. But you've also said you're listening to a huge amount of music on your iPods, and that getting your Spotify playlists onto them as MP3s has been a serious hassle, forcing you to juggle multiple music players. That's until now...

As of today, Spotify is making it possible for everyone to take their playlists with them in one lean, green music machine.

New features include:

Manage your iPod in Spotify! For the first time, seamlessly manage any iPod classic, iPod nano and iPod shuffle in Spotify. Simply connect your iPod to your computer via your USB cable and watch it magically appear in the new 'Devices' section of your Spotify sidebar.
Sync all the MP3s contained in your Spotify playlists to your iPod, and purchase the rest through...

The all-new Spotify download service! Listening to the music you want to hear, wherever you want it, just got a whole lot simpler - and cheaper.
Your playlists are special to you. You've spent untold hours putting together your own mix-tape masterpieces on your computer and want to take them with you, but without the trouble of having to buy each track separately, switching music players or breaking the bank? Then look no further.

Spotify's new MP3 download service makes it possible to own your playlists in one easy step. By introducing a range of MP3 bundles, we've been able to offer you some of the most competitive prices available - from as little as 60 cents per song.

Spotify Mobile app now available to all! iPod integration was your biggest request, but there are also a lot of Spotify Free users out there who are iPhone and Android phone owners. You asked for the ability to buy your MP3 playlists and sync to your phones. So we've got you covered too...

As of today, everyone can download the Spotify Mobile iPhone & Android apps to wirelessly sync your MP3 playlists in Spotify from your computer to your phone. Fire up your mobile app and see your phone appear in the 'Devices' section of the Spotify sidebar, ready to rock and roll. No cables required! And did we mention it's now possible to wirelessly sync these playlists to your iPod touch?

Now everyone can own their favourite Spotify playlists to take wherever they want. Heading out for a run or off on a trip? Buying the songs you want to hear has never been quicker, easier or more affordable.

All new features will begin being rolled out to all users from today as part of an automatic update. Be sure to give us a spin!

Daniel Ek, CEO & Founder of Spotify, says: "From today, Spotify really is the only music player you'll ever need. Our users don't want to have to switch between music players, but they do want to take their playlists with them wherever they go, on a wider range of devices, more simply and at a price they can afford. Now we've made that possible on one of the world's most popular consumer devices."

Gustav Söderström, Chief Product Officer at Spotify, adds: "Accessing music on your mobile phone is the future, but today that makes up a pretty small percentage of music fans. We want to open up the Spotify experience to as many people as possible, and in a way where they can get exactly the music they want at a great price. Check it out – we really hope you like it."

I am already more or less on the move to Wimp (which more of you may have heard of in a year or so, we'll see...)