The music streaming service Spotify is getting stingier, and restricting the amount of songs that can be listened to for free.
Six months and then music is halved
Here’s how the new restrictions pan out: Spotify is to halve the amount of free music its users can listen to from 20 hours per month to 10 hours once they have been signed up for six months.
Anyone who signed up for Spotify’s free service on or before November 1 last year will automatically be shunted on to the new terms on May 1st, while folks signing up after November 1st, 2010 will be able to enjoy six months before the new restrictions come into play.
Five strikes and you buy
Lovestruck divorcees wanting to loop Harry Nilsson’s “Without You” are likely to become unstuck too, with Spotify now only allowing five free plays of a song before users are prompted to either shell out for the tune or sign up to one of Spotify’s subscription services.
Ken needs to prioritise
Ken Parks, Spotify’s chief content officer, insisted that these new terms were necessary as the company had to “balance a number of priorities”.
“Chief amongst those priorities is to keep the free service, which is what makes Spotify unique, and what you’re seeing here is a balance of these priorities. We’ve shown that the model is doing extremely well, but as things stand we need to tweak the service to ensure everyone has access to legal music in the long term,” he added.
The Unlimited and Premium services remain unaffaected by these changes.
