Talk:Spotify/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Streaming Rate

The statement "the highest streaming rate for any online service" is inaccurate. www.bluebeat.com has offered this rate for at least the last 6 years. PatrickHendry (talk) 18:26, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Compatible with C?

Somebody's on drugs here. You can never talk about operating systems being compatible with programming languages. Especially when you mention POSIX in the same sentence. Get a clue.

DominicConnor (talk)I agree, a system may support a POSIX interface, but being "compatible" with C is bizarre, you can write C code for your washing machine, some people actually do that, but it seems unlikely that mine will be playing music any time soon. I'll amend that to reflect technical reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DominicConnor (talk • contribs) 13:41, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

I suppose the author intended "operating systems for which an ANSI C compiler exists." I suspect this is misleading, since C99 compilers are few and far between these days. decltype (talk) 13:50, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Other language versions

There are no links to other language versions of this article - I know Swedish [[3]] and German [[4]] versions exist, not sure about other languages. How would one go about adding links to these other articles? MMad (talk) 14:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Read Help:Interlanguage links. --τις (talk) 21:33, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

cost of subscription

who ever did the coversion of the currencies has got it compleatly wrong some of them are off by a 30% or so might want to sort tht out —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.23.49.206 (talk) 14:51, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Past tense

Is there any reason that this article is written in past tense? Calibwam (talk) 19:34, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Availability

What countries is this available in? 79.97.217.231 (talk) 18:12, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Most of Europe - and that's in the article. Duke toaster (talk) 21:15, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

The article does not explicitly state that it is only available in Europe, I don't see any harm in making it clearer that it is currently not available in the USA or Canada, so I have done so. Does anyone know what the deal is in Asia or Australasia? Does Spotify work anywhere outside of Europe? It's probably worth mentioning. Teenagelicks (talk) 04:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Download songs

You can't download songs in this program. It simply streams them. Please fix the article accordingly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.158.160.75 (talk) 02:43, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

there is a link to itunes, but you cant buy directly from spotify. change it ;). By the way I am a fat lazy person who can't change it for myself. Just like the guy above me! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.182.129.53 (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

There's a right click "buy" link on mine but it is blanked out. Where is the iTunes link? Jellypuzzle | ^Talk 11:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

The iTunes link seems to be greyed-out on some tracks and not on others. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.199.179.35 (talk) 18:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Just checked and for me everything I look at currently seems to have the buy link greyed out including ones that worked last time I tried. Perhaps a temporary bug. Citizensmith (talk) 18:21, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

It does most certainly download the songs, its just that you can't save them on your hard drive in ordinary facion on computers streaming and downloading is exactly the same thing in reality213.100.152.146 (talk) 19:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Spotify downloads the songs you listen to. It stores them in a temporary folder, so that next time you listen to them it doesn't need to download again. The music files that are saved on your computer are encoded with DRM so that only spotify can play the songs. After a specified number of days the DRM runs out and the files become unusable, even by spotify. This enables the Premium Client to have an offline mode, where songs can be played even if you are not connected to the Internet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.177.240.135 (talk) 11:19, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

What anybody has already said, you can download the files by using Despotify or reverse-engineering yourself. Jmendeth (talk) 07:03, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Legality

It would be nice to see a section on whether this is legal (I have no idea). -- Amber388

I read an article about Spotify and they have deals with the major labels which provide their content. No users can provide content so they're clearly pulling from a catalog that is distributed through the "proprietary" cloud computing software (aka P2P). As a result of their licensing it's not currently available in the United States and is thus only available in select European countries as their market grows. I'll attempt to find more articles on this in a week if I can but someone else can likely elaborate on it if they have more information than me. --139.78.10.16 (talk) 13:24, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks legit to me, judging by this Guardian article from the UK. 86.132.138.159 (talk) 19:15, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Some artists song have been removed per their requests. So any artists who doesnt want to be streamed can ask. The catalogue is being managed separately for the different countries, so the rights issues are dealt with. The catalogue has been supplied by the copyright-holding music companies. The spotify about box prominently displays the logos of the big 4 - Universal, Sony-BMG, EMI and Warner as well as some others. So how exactly is it illegal? Peer-to-peer media applications are not INHERENTLY illegal, you know. --90.218.44.2 (talk) 21:02, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but they are often illegal and so it's quite natural to want to make sure, and make this explicit in the article. Just be happy Amber didn't burst in and kindly inform us all loudly that is is all very illegal without actually checking anything, as I've seen quite a few people do. --Jonnty (talk) 00:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Anyone who can't tell the difference between peer-to-peer media platforms and streaming media services like Spotify (which, in fact, are actually not "often illegal") should not be editing this article. Just because you personally don't know something that is fairly obvious to people who understand it doesn't mean it's a necessary addition to an article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.64.210.14 (talk) 21:21, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Spotify uses P2P technology, so unless they transfer the redistribution rights to their users, the use of the software may be illegal in countries where you are not allowed to upload copyrighted material. I've read the legal sections of their site, and there is no mention of this. To be sure you should ask a copyright lawyer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.253.200.34 (talk) 11:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Recent content removals

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/01/28/some-important-changes-to-the-spotify-music-catalogue/ Apparently, a significant number of artists didn't want their music streamed and their content was removed from Spotify. This might be worth mentioning in the article, along with a list of affected artists. --217.76.87.120 (talk) 10:33, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

I cant seem to find any metallica.... 86.16.153.191 (talk) 08:54, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Why is the absence of certain artists (Beatles, Metallica, Bob Dylan) in the features section? I don't see how this is a feature of Spotify. Perhaps a feature of the record label's policies but that applies to Last.fm, Deezer, we7 and all the other streaming sites. Afront (talk) 23:44, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Latest version

Your picture is of Spotify running on horrible Windows. The "latest version" doesn't match that found on Mac OS X. The build number therefore has to be removed. Once again: DO THE RESEARCH BEFORE WRITING. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.227.114.140 (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry but most people don't check every single thing that they think is correct. Also, congrats on getting ripped off by Apple. Also, are you saying that the latest version of Spotify is only on Windows, or only on Mac?

History section

I just expanded the history section of the article to include the launch of the service. I wrote "the launch meant that paid subscriptions were opened to everyone". I would however appreciate it if someone could confirm this, as my information is only from the Spotify blog post. The blog post says that "premium access to Spotify has now been made fully available" (emphasis mine) - so I'm not sure whether paid subscriptions were in fact available before the launch, and if so, what the launch actually changed.

On a different issue, doesn't the potential security breach of Spotify user data get a disproportionally large section on the history? While it may indeed be worthy of mention, being over 1/4 of the history text and expanding to two paragraphs seems a bit aggressive. Opinions? --Ilari (talk) 13:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It's history now. Er... Afront (talk) 23:46, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Added Norway to availability of the free version

I added Norway to the list of country where the free version is availible. I'm a norwegian user of the software and I'm using the free version. 81.166.40.211 (talk) 23:10, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Merge with Despotify?

No thats like merging: the windows xp and Linux article, cause both of them uses Internet or cause both are operative systems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.100.152.146 (talk) 17:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

It's not really anything like merging the Windows XP and Linux articles. Despotify is a reverse-engineered version of Spotify. It uses the Spotify catalogue, the Spotify servers and would be nothing without Spotify. If Spotify shut down its servers today Despotify would not work. It has recently been banned from use on anything but Spotify premium accounts which is a sign the two companies, positive or not, are working together. Its article is also up for deletion/merging here. Jellypuzzle | ^Talk 08:27, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I do feel as though the Despotify section needs some clarification as to what precisely Despotify actually does. You could search for a separate Despotify article, but I feel it is important to give a brief description of the software here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.67.160 (talk) 12:42, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the Despotify section doesn't mention at any point what it does, just that it exists. Anylayman (talk) 01:43, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I think also at the moment there's much too much on Despotify in proportion to the amount of text about Spotify - Spotify is much more notable and at the moment it could be inferred that Despotify is as important, which it isn't. Thanks a lot, Drum guy (talk) 14:48, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

So how about a 1 sentence description of Despotify? No point in including the section without it. Despotify is new to me so I won't try to provide it...

Fairflow (talk) 13:33, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is Despotify missing in this article?

How can "Despotify" redirect to "Spotify" when there currently isn't anything about Despotify in the article? Kernalk (talk) 18:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC) +1.

Despotify had its own section, but not anymore, I don't know why... --Norz (talk) 19:06, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

It was removed by Dynablaster on August 6th, citing it as spam. Not sure why. danno 19:29, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

This programme, and others like it, do not meet the criteria for notability. Dynablaster (talk) 20:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Someone had added a new one-sentence section about Despotify. I reverted it to the one removed by User:Dynablaster (plus one new sentence). Here are four Swedish-language reliable sources that mention Despotify and thereby make it notable: [5], [6], [7], [8] (I added one of them to the article). brtkrbzhnv 17:02, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Do the artists gets paid?

I was wondering if the artists available on Spotify gets paid, and if they do, in what matter. Is it based on numbers of listenings to the respective artist's songs or will it be compensated in form of a one time sum? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.202.100.208 (talk) 19:45, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it is royalty based form the adverts. Don't quote me on that though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.21.31 (talk) 09:56, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

This was among the first questions that came to my head when I heard about Spotify and I still haven't really found out. Does it all depend on the artists and their contracts? Can I ask Spotify to add the music I've created myself? We really should say something about the licenses Spotify has with the record companies or tell explicitly that the contracts are secret if this is the case. At the moment this article seems just like an add for the users. Malitsu (talk) 12:42, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

>

This is exactly the question I had in mind when I searched for the article, but got no answer. It would be interesting to read about copyright fees. 82.181.84.89 (talk) 12:17, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The artist's labels get paid. It's then up to the label to decide how much to give to the artist. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek was talking on Twitter today. When asked about this he replied: "[artist labels are] paid by sharing our revenues depending on how many times a particular track is played." Afront (talk) 23:50, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

About missing bands and regions

Some bands are only available in Spotify when listening in certain regions. For example Oasis which is not avaiable in UK at all, but is in other countries. This should be mentioned on the page. I believe it's wrong to say Oasis is missing because of just one or a few regions. Colorred (talk) 10:58, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Also should note that this is not really Spotify's fault, it's down to the fact that the record labels license their music multiple times by having different deals in different countries (this worked in the past to increase income on rights, but seems increasingly archaic in the Internet age) Afront (talk) 23:54, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this article actually an ad?

Reading the text, this article seems like PR for the company/site/app. Anyone else shares this view? Rabend (talk) 16:22, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I don't think it quite rises to being G11'able, but it needs an advert tag at the very least. – ukexpat (talk) 16:34, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Do we need more consensus in order to take this action? Rabend (talk) 09:14, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I would be bold if I was you and stick the tag on. Then editors can have a bash at improving it. 89.243.156.225 (talk) 11:50, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I just read this article and, at the moment, it doesn't seem to read like an ad at all, while actually being comprehensive and well referenced. I will remove the tag in a couple of days unless an issue is raised. LjL —Preceding undated comment added 00:54, 12 June 2009 (UTC).

The article seems perfectly ok to me. It provides much useful information and I don't think it's written as an advert. My vote is to have the tag removed. Perhaps if anyone has any verifiable criticisms of Spotify they could add them to the article. John259 (talk) 11:36, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, costs should not be included in an encyclopedic entry, as well as feature "advantages" (in the Features section). To me, it reads like a "why should i sign up section". Rabend (talk) 12:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

It's been about a month, with lots of changes, and I don't think it's particularly ad-like, so I'm going to "be bold" and remove the ad tag. Somebody else can put it back if they disagree. Daedae (talk) 17:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Virus

McAfee (And I think some other virus software) thinks that Spotify is or contains a virus. When I opened it today, it popped up and effectively uninstalled the program. When I tried to re-install, it popped up with the same thing. The virus is W32/IRCBot.gen.z Should this be included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.216.89.15 (talk) 14:09, 22 May 2009 (UTC) After more research - it's a false positive: http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?lc=2057&id=TS100682 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.216.89.15 (talk) 19:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

See official announcement regarding this issue: http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/05/22/spotify-and-mcafee-a-little-mix-up/ Bricklayer (talk) 12:37, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Under-represented or completely missing artists

Hi. My edit was undone, so I'd like to raise a discussion here. I took away this sentence from the features section: "However, some major bands are either very under-represented or are completely missing from the library, including AC/DC, Oasis, The Beatles, Metallica, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd." My argument: I CAN find all those artists in Spotify! The person who undid my edit said that I should first find prove before I can take that statement away. But how can I find prove for it?? Can't you just confirm my view by typing those names into Spotify yourself? Oh and about the existing reference: Yeah, it says that those artists are missing, but maybe Spotify added them after that article was written. I definitely can find those artists in Spotify! --Tilmanb (talk) 06:23, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I must admit, I found in the Spotify FAQ that they write themselves that they don't have those artists. But why oh why can I find those artists if I type whem into the search field of Spotify??? --Tilmanb (talk) 06:46, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, ok, I think I understand now the situation. The mentioned artists' original songs might not be represented in the Spotify catalog but what I find are some kind of reproductions, no idea what exactly they are... To me, they sound like the real Beatles etc. I make a note of this into the main article. Please let me know (here or somewhere) if you disagree. --Tilmanb (talk) 07:09, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Those artists are not represented on Spotify, what you are finding is tribute acts, and sound-a-likes. But the fact that such a major range of artists are not on Spotify shoudl be clearly mentioned in the opening paragraph of this article. My impressions seem to be that Sony are not releasing their catalogue, along with Geffen. It's definitely one of the 'Major' distributors that are withheld.--Macca7174_talk 12:02, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

A search on the UK Spotify for label:"sony" gives 56,276 tracks (inc. albums from Beyonce and Kasabian). Similarly, Geffen have over 8,000 tracks (inc. albums from Guns 'n' Roses, Aerosmith). Afront (talk) 23:33, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Map is outdated

Spotify Premium is no longer available in the Netherlands/ Holland. Don't know about the situation in other countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.74.120.30 (talk) 12:34, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know it's never been available in any other than the countries where it is free, not even as Premium product. For sure I can state that for Germany. So the map is definitely misleading. 91.32.108.79 (talk) 08:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the premium version was available in Holland (not the free version), only to mysteriously disappear when the Iphone app was launched. The Spotify people never mentioned anything about this in a press release or on their blog of course.. Bad PR I guess. 82.74.120.30 (talk) 14:32, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

It is available, you just need to mask your IP adress. This is the internet, it does not belong in any one country. Also, if you google around in Sweden (or ask a Swedish person as I did) you can find the crack to the premium version without having to pay. Dunno if that should be in the article or not.

The current map is correct. Spotify is available in the Netherlands as of May 2010. Please don't replace the new map with the old map again. Perchrc (talk) 21:39, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

Cultural impact

Reading this article as an occasional user/editor I feel it's missing something about the cultural impact of this service and those like it. Spotify is already having major effects in terms of the way we feel we should be able to interact with our media; it's still a bit cutting-edge at the moment, but as its user base grows, several authors I've read have predicted the effect will be revolutionary - we can only speculate on the impact a hypothetical movie version, delivering high-quality media reliably, on demand and funded through advertising and/or subscription, once the technology is there. Recently, for example, Spotify made the news when the British Conservative Party became the first UK political party to advertise on Spotify - there are plenty of sources, most notably The Times (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6883696.ece). Meanwhile, Douglas Carswell MP has recently made a number of posts about Spotify on his blog, linking it with his beliefs concerning wider trends in politics fuelled by possibilities created by the internet (see most recently http://www.talkcarswell.com/show.aspx?id=1079).

I would be bold and have a go at this, but I'm concerned that as the sources I have access to principally relate to the British Conservative Party and I am a member of that party, it would place me in a conflict of interests to begin such a section myself. I will of course happily contribute if someone else will start a section like this, provided I can satisfy myself as to my own impartiality in what I post. Lordrosemount (talk) 19:28, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

GL: I am not interested in the politics, but for me the introduction of Spotify was a truly major change. It was the biggest development since ... well probably the web itself. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.23.76.81 (talk) 12:17, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Content Save

Someone deleted my text about the saving of Spotify content. It said that "you could not save Spotify output". But there are hundreds of free programs that simply record all speaker output. Its not warez or a crack, its simply my right to record what ever plays out of my speakers. I think it should stay in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.69.77 (talk) 20:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I've worked your changes back into the article. I agree that there was no issue there - regardless of whether you should be allowed to, the fact that people can and do is notable and should be on the page. I'll raise it with User:Ukexpat. I haven't put back the '90% of users are from the US' statistic, as that's just dying for a source. Presumably you must have read it somewhere, so do you have one? --Jonnty (talk) 00:59, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

If a reliable source can be found showing that these activities are notable then I have no objection to a brief statement about them. As it stands now (and as was the case with the changes I reverted) they are unsourced. – ukexpat (talk) 02:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am unsure how this Wiki thing works or who is in charge. But I googled the 90% of users based in the USA. Is "Google" a good enough reference source? Apart from that, it is certainly necessary to state while the Spotify does not include a save button a 5 year old can work out how to record sound coming out of the speakers, like DUH! - And that fact surely does not need to be sourced because its knowledge in the public domain. You just press record on a tape machine next to the pc, or you stick a record jack in the headphone output, or you use any one of 200 programs that record sound from the sound card as it is played to the speakers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.69.77 (talk) 14:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

First, no one is in charge, we work by consensus. Second, if you are unsure how "this Wiki thing works" maybe you should read up on that before you edit any further. I have left a welcome message on your IP talk page with a number of links for further reading. Third, no, Google is not a reliable source, it is a search engine - see WP:RS for guidance as to what is a reliable source for Wikipedia purposes, and WP:CITE for how to cite those sources. Fourth, when you make bold statements of fact as you have done in the section that you added back (without consensus I might add), you cannot rely on "knowledge in the public domain", you have to support that statement by reference to a source, so that readers can verify the statement. Hope I have helped clarify. – ukexpat (talk) 16:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, I am at a library (which I use a few times as week), so the Ip changes all the time and is used by different people, so thats not really a great help. How can I source something as obvious that by placing a tape recorder next to the pc you can record Spotify output? It is widely known that there a large number of programs that record spotify output, identify the songs, the pauses between the songs and all those annoying adverts. Result - you can have large numbers of Mp3 files just as in the day of Napster, except this time its legal. Why do you think The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Metalica and AC/DC have refused for their songs to be played on Spotify? Its difficult to source what is public knowledge. You say "bold statements" but you have not defined bold, the meaning of the word bold is public knowledge and does not need to be defined. You can take sourcing too far, and this will defeat the object of Wikipedia and it will crash. Remaining will be a few boffins with a vast knowledge of how to quote, source and post, and the rest of the world will feel alienated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.69.77 (talk) 19:09, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Create an account so that you have a user talk page - it's also more anonymous than editing from an IP as your IP address is hidden. As I explained above, please read WP:RS for guidance as to what constitutes a reliable source. I am not trying to be difficult here, but this needs to be sourced. If it's "widely known" presumably a reliable source has covered it? Sourcing is the only way that article content can be verified so in fact it strengthens Wikipedia. Let me make this offer -- find a source or two, list them here and I will add them to the article for you, deal? – ukexpat (talk) 21:53, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't adding information on how to circumvent the DRM in Spotify be illegal and against Wikipedia rules? 149.254.58.36 (talk) 04:00, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Fastest streaming ever?

"Audio streams are in the Vorbis format at q5 (approx ~160 kbit/s)[14], or optional q9 (approx ~320kbit/s)[15] for premium subscribers, the highest streaming rate for any online service."

Is that true for the UK or for all the countries? It would be nice with a reference. Marcusroos (talk) 22:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Users accessing the service from a mobile have the option of streaming at q3 (for low bandwidth, such as 3G connections) or the standard q5. Jmendeth (talk) 20:24, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

198.214.235.51 (talk) 19:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC) Citation for investment by major labels.

Not sure about wikistandards, so here's my contribution. The Wired article below puts the number at 17.3% of shares owned by major labels. Not exactly a "controlling share" necessarily.

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/08/ka-shing-spotify-investors-include-chinese-billionaire/

Rewrite

Per the {{cleanup-rewrite}} tag on the article, I had a go at the introduction:

Spotify is a proprietary peer-to-peer music streaming service and application for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Developed by a Sweedish startup, it is available in Sweden, Spain, Norway, Finland, France and the United Kingdom. The software allows unlimited streaming of selected music from a multitude of major and independent record labels including Sony, BMI, Warner Music Group and Universal. An ad-supported version of the software is free, but for a monthly fee, users can upgrade to a "Premium" account, which offers higher bitrate streams, offline access to music and use of Spotify on mobile devices. Music can be browsed by artist, by album, record label or playlist as well as by direct searches, and a link allows the listener to purchase selected material via partner retailers. Launched in October 2008, Spotify now has over 5 million users.

Is there anything important I've left out? Thanks, Aqx (talk) 18:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Currently the introduction reads regarding platforms:

The system is currently accessible using Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and mobile devices such as the iPhone and those running Android, Symbian, Windows Mobile or Palm's HP webOS.

I would suggest adding mobile platforms and rephrasing the platform names to be consistent so it reads more like:

Spotify is a proprietary peer-to-peer music streaming service and application for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X as well as Android, iOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile and HP webOS. Developed by a Sweedish startup, it is available in Sweden, Spain, Norway, Finland, France and the United Kingdom. The software allows unlimited streaming of selected music from a multitude of major and independent record labels including Sony, BMI, Warner Music Group and Universal. An ad-supported version of the software is free, but for a monthly fee, users can upgrade to a "Premium" account, which offers higher bitrate streams, offline access to music and use of Spotify on mobile devices. Music can be browsed by artist, by album, record label or playlist as well as by direct searches, and a link allows the listener to purchase selected material via partner retailers. Launched in October 2008, Spotify now has over 5 million users. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 118.92.152.19 (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

There is an official Linux version: http://www.spotify.com/uk/download/previews/ I am concerned that the current article says IPhone rather than IOS. It's not really fair that only one hardware phone platform is mentioned here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.177.240.135 (talk) 11:30, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Criticism on bandwidth use

Theres no mention in the article that users are largely unaware of the p2p element and its affect on bandwidth, admittedly this is probably hard to find sources for but spotify is the bane of many network admins. I do have Oxford university banning spotify over bandwidth usage concerns > [9]. 77.97.99.75 (talk) 20:41, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

You can block outbound connections at the firewall and still use Spotify, so you are cutting out the P2P element. You can also restrict ports (only 80 or 443 is necessary for logging in and streaming from Spotify servers). Is this worth a mention in the article?

---

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.101.150.121 (talk) 06:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Photographer advertisement

Under the history section, the photo therein has been captioned with (Photo by x), with a link to their personal Flikr. Since I don't know if this an offense or not, I don't want to make an edit, but rather point it out if anyone else wants to. 75.39.189.101 (talk) 10:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

I removed the credit per WP:CREDITS. – ukexpat (talk) 16:52, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

See Also Section Cleaned

Spotify#See Also was a fairly long list mostly consisting of related media distribution services but also a few dead links and unrelated material, which should not be present in a See Also section (see WP:SEEALSO). I have removed all dead links/unrelated material/material that has already been linked from within the article from the list. In addition, I have removed related media distribution services from the list and instead added the NavBox Digital Distribution Platforms. This is a better way of linking users to large amounts of related material.--kikumbob (talk) 11:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Despotify - really worth mentioning?

Im not sure Despotify itself, as a single computer program, is worth having on the page in its own right? What are other people's thoughts? (Am not saying it should be removed from the article completely, my preference would probably be to restructure the section, maybe as a general 'piracy concerns' section?) Mike1901 (talk) 22:35, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I think Spotify is deeply linked to Despotify, and I'd leave it as it is, an alternate client for Spotify.

Anyway, I agree with you that it should be good to have a section regarding 'Legality of third-party clients' (not just Spotify).

I would not remove Despotify. Yes, it is really worth mentioning. Jmendeth (talk) 20:32, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Language of Despotify Section - Overtly Technical

I've read this article and it is generally written in a way that is easy to understand for anyone, I think. However, the Despotify section looks like it is pasted in from a piece of writing designed to be read by those who are well-versed in computer programming and associated lingo/jargon. I am a professional tech so am not a computer dunce by a long shot, however I do know nothing at all about programming. A lot of this section is therefore incomprehensible to me, and indeed it took a couple of reads to figure out exactly what despotify was. All this information about what compilers and other stuff I've never heard of is surely both too hard to understand for the casual reader (if I don't get all of it (I know what a compiler does but that's about as far as I can go with it) then someone with very little computing knowledge has no chance) and also surely such detailed technical descriptions of despotify are pointless on a spotify article. I can't change it because I don't understand it but someone should look at it.Duster (talk) 18:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

You're right. It is actually a copy-paste from his FAQ. We're basically quoting his website. I think if we try to explain this with our own words it's very easy to remove neutrality or provide self-research information. Jmendeth (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should add a section like "Spotify and DRM" (Digital Rights Management) which introduces the user to these words. What do you think? Jmendeth (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Bloggers reply to criticism

Parhaps should under the criticism section be some information about what bloggers, the company, artists and news reporters; the very same sort of people that give the criticism; have written/said to answer the criticism Spotify has recieved. For instance, check the blog post by Steve Lawson: If Spotify Is the New Radio the Artists Are Winning —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.170.211 (talk) 04:51, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I perfectly agree. Jmendeth (talk) 20:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Tone of voice

From the article as I currently see it:

"Despotify is the result of spending a ridiculous amount of time reverse engineering Spotify’s official application."

I've seen some heavy-duty garbage on Wikipedia before, but the use of the word "ridiculous" in that sentence is the most... dare I say it... ridiculous thing I've ever seen here. Talk about a non-neutral, non-encyclopedia tone... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.22.221.159 (talk) 03:57, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

Anyone can edit Wikipedia... including you. Why not to "fix" this yourself? Slasher-fun (talk) 07:35, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

This is because it's directly quoted from the Despotify website. Jmendeth (talk) 07:19, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Article should address the meaning of the name

The article should address the meaning of the name, if a reliable source can be found. Things like "iTunes" have obvious meanings, but there must be some background info about why the creators of Spotify chose the name. —Shada Ng (talk | contribs) 16:21, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

>>found this not sure if it's a reliable source or if the content is worth mentioning http://www.quora.com/Spotify/How-did-Spotify-get-its-name Devin Bremmeyr (talk) 10:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Citations

there is no consistent citation pattern within this article. It's sorta annoying. romnempire (talk) 18:20, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

PS: I just removed the following sentence as the citations do not back up the claim! Please re-publish if you can find genuine sources. •Λmniarix• (talk) 11:04, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

It also announced having reached 1.6 million paying subscribers in Europe, up from 1 million in March.

Features Section

Hi all--The features section as it currently stands, relies on questionable/ personal references. Additionally, its formatting gives off the appearance of a list, instead of paragraphs with multiple sentences. Below, you can find my suggestions for modifying the Features section. Please let me know what you all think!

User:Togna_bologna/Tony_Sandbox

--Togna bologna (talk) 18:31, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

I have since made edits to the features section.

--Togna bologna (talk) 13:39, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Despotify--What is it?

As it stands right now, the article has plenty of information about Despotify, but nothing that says what it actually does. At least a line about despotify's function would be helpful here, if it's worth having it on the page in the first place. Magic1million (talk) 15:26, 28 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, now Despotify is listed under Clients, concretely Third-party clients.

Maybe we should explain what is a client at the top of the article? (just asking, I'm a programmer and for me it's an obvious thing but maybe not the same for other people) Jmendeth (talk) 20:56, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Major acts not available on spotify --> deleted

Today I deleted the "major acts not available on spotify" section. It was a recent addition by user "Mepex", but I wouldn't expect such a section in an encyclopedia. Also, a link (reference) provided in the "Catalogue" section would probably cover the same. --here@llyis@dj (talk) 20:29, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm confused- why would you not expect such a section in an encyclopedia? It's certainly relevant. It's material in evaluating Spotify as a service, which is a driver of readers to the article. Also, it's new information- Spotify, nor any other page on the net I could find listed that information, which is why a link wasn't provided. I had to discover that information by using Spotify myself, and I would expect other users to update and add information to the section if they discovered other artists that were applicable. Mepex (talk) 22:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Lawsuits

Why is there no mention of lawsuits in the article? Spotify has been in conflict with Grooveshark and PacketVideo. Binksternet (talk) 17:45, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

First Sentence

The first sentence of the article is currently this.

• Spotify is a Swedish DRM-restricted music streaming service offering streaming of selected music from a range of major and independent record labels, including Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.

I removed some words to change it to:

• Spotify is a music streaming service...

This was because I did not feel that its nationality, nor the fact that it is compliant with DRM are important enough to be in the very first sentence.

This change was reverted. Can I find out why other people think the full version is more appropriate?

90.213.252.19 (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Advertising revenue?

The free Spotify service is supposedly paid for by advertising, but I have been using Spotify (in the UK) now for several weeks without seeing or hearing a single advert, except the screen ads for Spotify's premium service which show when I open the ap. Am I just lucky, or is there in fact very little advertising on Spotify - in which case I am not surprised they are losing money! 109.158.42.60 (talk) 07:32, 8 May 2012 (UTC) (Correction (from same contributor): I checked again, and there are some ads streaming across the bottom of the page. But since I don't watch the screen when I am listening, they might as well not be there!) 109.158.42.60 (talk) 07:40, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

In the UK, after six months of free use, there will be a limit of 10 hours per month and 5 plays per track. The latter never resets. This is why almost nobody uses Spotify Free in there and there's no real use advertising on it Jarskaaja (talk) 10:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Better map for availability

I suggest someone makes a better image for the availability of Spotify, where all countries can be shown. A world map with other words. Like this one: [10]. Jørgen88 (talk) 22:37, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Spotify

You need to add version history so we know what they add and what fixes they do and what version there and can you add current version and preview version to the side bar please — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.217.97.16 (talk) 14:38, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

No. dots. AND. no. commas. AND. no. readable. senteces. AND. no. question. marks. AND. ... ;) Jmendeth (talk) 07:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Facebook requirement

"An active Facebook account is required to use Spotify, unless the user registered for a Spotify-only account before 22 September 2011. "

This is not true, at least in Germany. To which countries does this sentence refer? 87.165.100.205 (talk) 22:34, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

List of Spotify Apps

There should be a List of Spotify Apps page which can be updated to include new ones. This would become impractical if there were many hundreds of apps, but there are currently dozens and I don't expect there will ever be more than a hundred or two. -timothymh I am not a hippopotamus. I apologize in advance for any inconveniences this may cause. 21:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Timothymh (talk • contribs)

OMM Economic Equilibrium

The article seems to confuse the "premium" and "unlimited" subscriptions. The "premium" subscription is US$10 per month (the price mentioned in the article, but not the correct name). This is double the OMM suggested price point, not exactly close. The "unlimited" subscription is US$5 per month, exactly the OMM suggested price point, but with more restrictions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.216.214.59 (talk) 21:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Fonctionnement technique

Le parallèle avec Napster est aujourd'hui à relativiser, puisque l'on dépasse le simple service mixte P2P - ServeurCentralisé pour aller vers une utilisation faite en parallèle avec Facebook, qui fait donc glisser vers un fonctionnement en réseau social.

Who owns the Spotify company?

I read that Spotify is owned by major music labels, can anyone confirm this please? --Norz (talk) 08:34, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

It pays them for the rights to their songs, and that money comes from Spotify's profits, but otherwise, no. AJO191 (talk) 22:43, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, the shares of Spotify is split between companies which again has shares owned by the big record label companies. Source: [11] - [12] - [13] - [14]. Jørgen88 (talk) 22:35, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Spotify LLC is a private organization that is in charge of the service. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.52.207.104 (talk) 01:05, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Cost of the application

The cost of the application, the free verison or the premium version should be mentioned at the introduction and in the cost section clearly. I couldn't find it at the moment. Georgepowell2008 (talk) 07:56, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

In the article is writter "A six-month free trial period is activated upon Spotify account registration or first login with a Facebook account", but I cannot find anything about this in the Spotify Terms and agreement. I think this part should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.20.217.232 (talk) 11:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Pricing is incorrect/incomplete

The table lists the unlimited/premium prices as €4.99/€9.99, at least in Portugal the price for those services are €3.49/€6.99. If the prices vary by region, perhaps it should say so somewhere? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.196.34.246 (talk) 21:22, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

intro

"music streaming service' sounds a little jargony; wouldn't a service that provides music over the internet be clearer to more people ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.195.10.169 (talk) 21:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

5 Track Play Limit Removed

Just to leave a note here, the 5 track play limit restriction on Spotify Free accounts in France has finally been removed (I have edited the article, I hope I did it right!). This limit therefore no longer exists in any country across the Spotify network. Confirmation and blog post are at: http://community.spotify.com/t5/Spotify-Announcements/Spotify-Free-Changes-5-Play-Limit/m-p/432402/highlight/true#M2776. Hammeh (talk) 17:13, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

P2P technology

I suspect that about 99% of Spotify users (including myself until recently) are unaware that it uses P2P technology. I think this should be given much greater prominence in the article. It has implications for both functionality of devices (e.g. slowing down of other applications) and bandwidth usage, with potential cost implications for some users. I don't think any other major streaming service uses P2P, so it is surely a notable feature of Spotify. Yet Spotify does not publicise it at all, and anyone reading the Terms of Service would be unlikely to guess that they are opening up their computer to P2P traffic.109.158.43.165 (talk) 17:35, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Wulfpeck silent sting

Notable: [15]? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Notable about the band, not the site. Walter Görlitz (talk) 16:11, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Really? Even though unique, costly, ambarassing and all over the media? Martinevans123 (talk) 16:14, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, it's notable, but it's already in the article: Spotify#Royalties, last paragraph.- MrX 16:21, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Guess that answers that one. Although some of the sources I've seen claim the band used single tracks, of just over 30 seconds long, to maximise the repeat effect. The article currently just mentions the silent album. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:06, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Clear summary description needed

This article needs a clear summary description of Spotify. I just want to know, in simple terms, what Spotify IS and I can't figure it out from this long and convoluted article. ---Dagme (talk) 18:37, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

The first phrase of the article says "Spotify is a commercial music streaming service." Is that a confusing statement? If so maybe we can try and fix it.GoGatorMeds (talk) 20:54, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Djay 2 integration with Spotify

Unless I'm not seeing it, I don't see anywhere stating that Spotify joined with Djay 2 (a third party client & app). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chinwonder (talk • contribs) 21:51, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Picture is not updating since I tried to update it.

IGNORE WHAT I SAID ON THIS PARAGRAPH HERE: –—I uploaded the picture (I added Canada, since they did so two months ago), and yet, the picture is the same. Is it that the server is updating or did I screw up something? Regardless, I tried to update since picture is dated. Check file history for details (tried to revert, yet something went wrong). Regards. --Damirgraffiti |☺Say Yo to Me!☺ 22:56, 8 November 2014 (UT

Actually, the upload worked! I just checked. =)--Damirgraffiti |☺Say Yo to Me!☺ 23:47, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Overemphasis on DRM

It has been observed on this talk page going back years that the article weirdly overemphasized Digital Rights Management.

This is an issue that a small and quixotic band of hackers and activists care very passionately about, but issue intensity is not really part of NPOV, is it? TiC ^(talk) 23:18, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Examples? Popcornduff (talk) 23:54, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Spotify PlayStation

Spotify for PlayStation is not a third party client, it's built and maintained by Spotify. I know this because I'm on the team that build it, and work for Spotify. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.224.103.17 (talk) 15:00, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Difficulty of cancelling Premium Spotify subscription

This is an issue I have experienced myself, and I have found a lot of mentions in forums, but I have not found enough high-quality references to include this issue in the article - has anyone else found refs for this?

To clarify what I mean by "difficult to cancel", this is my experience:

• on my Windows 7 computer, the Spotify app works fine, and the Spotify website using Chrome browser works fine,
• on my Android tablet Spotify app works fine,
• taking out a trial Premium subscription worked fine,
• every way I used Spotify worked fine EXCEPT trying to cancel my Premium subscription using Chrome and Windows 7 (the website just stopped responding).

Other people in forums seemed to be having similar problems (though I don't know what proportion of people had a problem when cancelling).

Eventually I managed to cancel using Dolphin browser on Android. FrankSier (talk) 17:23, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Needs rewrite

This article is in disastrous condition—a hodgepodge of all kinds of primary and unreliable sources and one-sentence paragraphs but very little overall (encyclopedic) understanding of Spotify's service in its time. The easiest first step is removing the mountains of minutiae—price, region differences, third-party apps, every supported platform. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information and it isn't the one-stop shop for looking up these sorts of things, even if you find it helpful and no other site currently exists for this purpose (I doubt it). Get out the machete, czar 21:47, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Accounts and subscriptions - Remove color in table

Hi! I edited the Accounts and subscriptions section, and I tried removing the coloring used in the table, as it has a red background in Spotify Free under Ads, but nowhere else. Unless there's a rule in Wikipedia about that, coloring that box red can seem quite subjective of the original editor's point of view. For some people, paying is a negative and ads are OK, so coloring in the way it's done now isn't neutral. I've tried researching, but I don't have enough experience to change the coloring myself, so I'd appreciate if someone could do it for me, or at least discuss the matter with me. Thank you :) LocalNet (talk) 05:30, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Spotify Family?

Should we add a section about the new Spotify Family plan? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.107.196.64 (talk) 08:51, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Why aren't sub-sections shown in list of contents?

Hi. The Spotify article list of contents only shows the major headlines (1, 2, 3), but not the sub-sections (5.1, 5.2, 5.3) that other articles do. Anybody know why? It should be fixed, but I don't know how. LocalNet (talk) 17:35, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

@LocalNet: I have went ahead and fixed the issue with subsections not being displayed. It had to do with the toclimit template being on the page. Removed it, so subsections now display in the Table of Contents. You're welcome :). Kamran Mackey (talk) 23:45, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Redundant content

Criticisms of royalty payments in the intro section seems redundant since these criticisms are repeated later in the article 49.178.29.123 (talk) 16:08, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi! That is fully our intention. On Wikipedia, the "lead" (everything over the table of contents) is supposed to be a summary of the most important parts of a given topic, with the article covering everything in more detail. :) LocalNet (talk) 17:07, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

Maybe so, but it's sloppy. It's a direct copy and paste, including a grammatical error. Unless you like looking like a retarded ape, it should be fixed. Preferably, one of the two should be re-worded completely. 173.170.214.91 (talk) 11:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Well done on the retarded ape comment, that certainly makes me more inclined to do what you are saying... Why does it need to be reworded? The two aren't required to look different, as far as I know. The lead should summarize the article. Things like 30 million songs, 40 million paying users and 100 million total users are also based on content in the article, but the lead summarizes that information into a shorter text for brevity, but the criticism part is a pretty good summary itself in the article. But here's the thing, though. You are more than welcome to make constructive criticism about the article (in fact, we applaud it; all feedback is valuable!), but making personal insults just isn't necessary. Furthermore, if you want it "re-worded completely", you can always try to edit it yourself. That's one of the things Wikipedia is for - collaborative editing. (I do, however, recommend testing rewriting the summary someplace else until you are satisfied so test-rewordings don't appear here.) LocalNet (talk) 12:17, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

It's fine to use the same text in the lead and the article, I think. If something is worded well in one place, there's no point rewording it for the sake of it. The lead is supposed to duplicate information, by design. Popcornduff (talk) 13:42, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for posting. Glad to see I'm not the only one with this opinion. :) LocalNet (talk) 18:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Good article status

Hi everybody.

I am considering nominating this article for good article status, but before I do so, I want to ask the community first if they are noticing something that should be changed, added, or removed? I appreciate any and all feedback, as I haven't nominated an article before, and although I think the article complies with the six criterias for good articles, I would preferably like someone else than myself to take a look first to see if there is anything particular that should be changed? Thanks. LocalNet (talk) 12:37, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I don't think the prose is there yet. Take the Funding section - it's just a series of one-sentence paragraphs, disconnected facts. The article doesn't have a sensible beginning, middle and end. Popcornduff (talk) 13:34, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your input. I will have a look at the Funding section and see if I can do anything to improve that. I am not entirely sure what I can do to give the article a "sensible" beginning, middle and end. Is it possible for you to be more specific? For example, is the lead okay? Should we reorganize the order of sections? Is there anything particular that should serve as the middle- and end-points of the article? LocalNet (talk) 13:39, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm quite late to the party (over 2 weeks late), but I think the article looks fine, and can be nominated for 'good article' status. The funding section does however need some decent work, at least in my mind. Kamran Mackey (talk) 08:36, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Foreign, subscription-required edit

Hi. Does anyone here have a subscription to the article(s) linked in this and this edit? I tried Googling to find English and more open sources, and because I couldn't find any, I question the information. Don't get me wrong, contributions are always appreciated, but foreign sources that I can't find a single English source covering the info for seems a little bit weird to me. I appreciate any help! LocalNet (talk) 15:45, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't have a subscription to those services, and I question the info myself. So, I think it would be best if the information was removed until English sources pertaining to the information show up. Kamran Mackey (talk) 15:48, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Month-date-year format

Hi @KamranMackey: I think changes to the date formats are supposed to be the result of a consensus, not a single user switching all of it. Spotify is headquartered in Sweden, a European country that uses the date-month-year format, not the American format. It makes very little sense to me to switch the format, as you did. Did you have a particular reason? LocalNet (talk) 15:18, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I mostly did it for consistency, Spotify may be a European/Swedish company, but Wikipedia uses the month-date-year format by default (at least in the majority of articles I've accessed and read), so I think it would be wise if we complied with the MDY format in this article as well. Just my two cents. Kamran Mackey (talk) 15:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

While you are correct that Wikipedia uses the month-date-year format by default, that's because this is the English Wikipedia and it has mostly ties to America, I think. But what other articles do is actually irrelevant, as per WP:OSE. And as stated in MOS:DATETIES; "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation." Granted, Sweden isn't primarily an English-speaking country, but this article completely relates to a company in a nation with the date-month-year format. And also, as per MOS:DATERET, "If an article has evolved using predominantly one format, the whole article should conform to it, unless there are reasons for changing it based on strong national ties to the topic or consensus on the article's talk page", neither of which are applicable reasons here.. I personally don't think the American date format makes any sense in this article... LocalNet (talk) 15:38, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh damn. The edit can't be reverted either... Oh god. There's no way I'm spending my time reverting all those dates manually... It should be reverted for all the reasons I stated above and because of WP:BRD, but I am not going to go through all that to do it. If anyone has a bot or something, I would extremely appreciate its use here. LocalNet (talk) 16:11, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@LocalNet: Hey, I reverted it. You made some really good points, so I guess it would be best to go back to the dmy format. It's going to be weird for me though because I'm so used to the month-date-year format, but oh well. Kamran Mackey (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Oh. I guess there was an easy way to do it. Thank you! And remember, don't take this personally, I am only concerned about the content! You're doing great work on Wikipedia, there's only a few edits that we need to discuss and do differently. Keep contributing :) LocalNet (talk) 16:19, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

@LocalNet: Yep, there is. Mostly because I used a script that I added to my Common.js page. It's called MOSNUM dates, and you can install the script by going to the Installing the script section in the article. It only works with the standard wikitext editor (WikiEd is not supported for whatever reason), but I think you'll be able to live with that. Kamran Mackey (talk) 16:23, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Ahh, thank you for the info! I learn something new every day! LocalNet (talk) 16:25, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

Windows 10 Screenshot

I just noticed that the Windows 10 screenshot of Spotify was uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, is licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0, and the author is credited to the person who uploaded the screenshot. I think it should be deleted from Commons since the screenshot contains a few copyrighted album covers and because Spotify itself is copyrighted computer software. DBZFan30 (talk) 01:59, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Hi @DBZFan30: I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "moved to Wikipedia", but if I understood you correctly, the screenshot contains copyrighted material that isn't adequately addressed in its description. I have never uploaded an image to Wikipedia, so I don't know what kind of info should be written to sort-of "approve" the image for publication here. If it needs to be removed due to copyright, then it definitely should be removed, but if a description can be written that approves its use, as I've seen happen to images, that should be done, because it's always a good thing to have images in the article. I don't personally know what needs to be written, though. I'm not sure if I actually answered your post, so feel free to write back if I am misunderstanding you. LocalNet (talk) 06:35, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

I added the copyvio image template to the image and notified the user. Spotify is indeed copyrighted, and all the album covers and images are pretty much copyrighted as well. Unless the user can change the license and add an adequate description, it will be speedily deleted as per Wikimedia Commons guidelines. I also noticed that the user uploaded a bunch more copyrighted images, which have also been tagged with the copyvio template. I do not think the user knows how copyright works and functions. Kamran Mackey (talk) 14:49, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for taking care of it! Copyrights are no joke, and I'm glad we are now in the safe territory again. LocalNet (talk) 15:15, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Add infobox software infobox to "Platforms" section or replace "dot-com company" infobox with it

I think it would be a good idea if we were to add the software infobox to the "Platforms" section, detailing the information about the various Spotify applications, such as the Android, iOS and Desktop clients, such as initial release date, version numbers, etc. I want to start a conversation here instead of just adding it directly, just in case anyone opposes to it. Another solution would be to change the "dot-com company" infobox to the software infobox, since this is an article about the software itself, not really about the company who owns the software (Spotify AB). @LocalNet: What do you think? Kamran Mackey (talk) 22:58, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi there @KamranMackey: Thank you for starting a discussion! Good idea! I always favor adding information on the apps, but it also depends on whether the majority of the apps are covered. For example, Spotify has apps for Android, iOS, Windows and macOS. If only two of those apps had reliable sources detailing version numbers, I would hesitate to add it. But good news! The iTunes Store covers the iOS app, APKMirror.com covers the Android app, and FileHippo.com covers both the Windows and macOS versions. Yay! I would leave the article infobox the way it is, and instead opt for a software infobox in the Platforms section, which directly concerns the apps, and where the current image could be used as the screenshot in the infobox. And just in case you weren't already thinking it, I just want to mention that software app info is best detailed on a separate page with the multiple releases template. So I say we go for it! :D Do you want to add the software infobox and template? If you don't know how, or don't want to, I can add it, just offering :) LocalNet (talk) 07:39, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

Hey @LocalNet: Just added the infobox, while moving all software related things that were listed in the dot-com company infobox to the software infobox. :) Like I mentioned in the edit summary though, if you want to improve it at all, feel free. - Kamran Mackey (Talk to me) (My contributions) 09:56, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@KamranMackey: Thank you! :) I'm going to edit a few things, hehe, but good work! LocalNet (talk) 09:59, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@LocalNet: Ah, so that's what you meant by platforms screenshot lol. By the way, do you notice the word "languages" next to "desktop version" in the software infobox for "Available in"? For some reason, it's showing that text and I can't get rid of it because it's not even listed in the article. It's like something added the text via an outside infobox, template, or something else. Could you take a look? - Kamran Mackey (Talk to me) (My contributions) 10:20, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@KamranMackey: No worries about the screenshot, this is what teamwork is for :) And yes, I see that. I edit Wikipedia's pure source code, and in that, it is listed in the infobox next to "language count". I'm not sure why you can't see that in Visual editing, but infobox coding is slightly weird. For example, information listed next to "Type" on the regular page is actually listed next to "genre" in source editing. Weird, haha, but yes, I found the text you mean. It should probably get removed, because I don't see any sources for it, or do you want me to do something else with it? :) LocalNet (talk) 10:30, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

@LocalNet: Nah, go ahead and remove it for now. :) - Kamran Mackey (Talk to me) (My contributions) 10:34, 11 March 2017 (UTC)

IPA

How do you pronounce the name in American English? Can someone please domenstrate using phonetic transcription? Thanks.—‎Lost Whispers _talk 01:42, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Lost Whispers: These kinds of questions are much more suited for Google. We like to keep Wikipedia talk page discussions about the topic at hand. :) LocalNet (talk) 07:24, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

I have searched through Google before, but there is no IPA provided. However I don't see how my comment was not suitable for the discussion page.—‎Lost Whispers _talk 08:23, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

@Lost Whispers: Hmmm. Well that's weird. I don't know how to write in "phonetic transcription", so I can't help you, unfortunately. As per WP:TALK, "The purpose of an article's talk page [...] is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page", which yours unfortunately doesn't do. I'd recommend asking on the talk page of a user, or someone you know in real life. I hope you figure it out! :) LocalNet (talk) 08:33, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

you don't know the motive behind the question: it was to provide an IPA template near the names so the pronunciation would be easy and clear to the readers, something no one has done yet as I can see. So it technically is concerning the article. And thank you :) —‎Lost Whispers _talk 02:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

@Lost Whispers: Oh! In that case, I apologize! LocalNet (talk) 05:57, 18 March 2017 (UTC)

History section

Hi everybody! I am considering making some dramatic changes to the History section, and would like to discuss before I do so. First of all, I would like to make events happening the same year into the same paragraph, as much as possible, rather than a list beginning with "In month year". Turning:

"In March 2011, Spotify temporarily removed display advertising from third-party sources on its computer software, after reports from users that the software was being flagged by anti-virus programs. PC Pro reported that "web monitoring firm NetCraft said the attack used a Java exploit to slip malicious code onto a user's computer".

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. The post stated that all Spotify Open and Spotify Free members would be transferred to a new product which limited audio streaming to 10 hours per month. In addition, individual tracks were limited to five plays. Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Premium members were not affected by this change. New users were exempt from these changes for six months."

into:

"In March 2011, Spotify temporarily removed display advertising from third-party sources on its computer software, after reports from users that the software was being flagged by anti-virus programs. PC Pro reported that "web monitoring firm NetCraft said the attack used a Java exploit to slip malicious code onto a user's computer". In April, Spotify announced via a blog post that they would drastically cut the amount of music that free members could access, effective 1 May 2011. The post stated that all Spotify Open and Spotify Free members would be transferred to a new product which limited audio streaming to 10 hours per month. In addition, individual tracks were limited to five plays. Spotify Unlimited and Spotify Premium members were not affected by this change. New users were exempt from these changes for six months."

(emphasis only added to show placement and not part of actual, proposed edit)

I think that would improve the prose. That said, once we do so, there is going to be a lot of information. I suggest creating a separate, main article for History of Spotify, with all the details, and then summarizing the key details here. I've seen that done before, and it looks great. One example is Google's History section and its main history page, although we would obviously make changes based on Spotify so not a direct copy. So I would start by carefully testing moving events in the same year together, fully aware that sometimes it might be needed to separate a year into two paragraphs if it's just too much for one, and then after that, creating a new, main History page. This isn't done in 5 minutes, obviously, and would need to be tested, but I wanted to hear first if this is something people are interested in? Thoughts? :) LocalNet (talk) 22:34, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Giving myself a delayed response here. I just added info on Spotify and Genius partnership to the History section, and the section is huge! No objections raised here about creating a separate, main article for History of Spotify, so I will be creating that page. The History section in this article will be shortened quite a lot, and will summarize key developments. This is a process that won't be done immediately, but I will begin with it hopefully sometime soon. LocalNet (talk) 15:52, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi @LocalNet: I disagree with the transfer to a dedicated history page. There's nothing wrong with the existing history, so I don't see a reason for migrating it to an entirely different page. - Kamran Mackey (talk to me · my contributions) 03:59, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi @KamranMackey: That was quite a late time to object, and technically far past the normal reasonable time expected to get objections before making changes, but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts anyway. There is something wrong with the History section; actually two things wrong. 1) It is becoming way too big and detailed, offering no detection or easy view of the important changes over the years, and 2) Wikipedia has guidelines and policies regarding article and section size that state that when sections get too big, information is supposed to be split into new articles. Not trying to sound aggressive here, but I have already slowly started the process seeing as I had consensus for two weeks, so unless you have more reasons to prevent the creation of a main article, I will still be moving forward with it. LocalNet (talk) 07:02, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Turns out that creating a main page for History is more difficult than I imagined. I'm having a really hard time deciding what content deserves prominence in the main article and what should be here, and how to summarize developments. A new, main page for History will probably need to be created in the future because the section will only get longer, but at this time, I'll let the article be the way it is. LocalNet (talk) 20:21, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Removing the "Social References" section

Hello. I recommend that the "Social References" section of the Spotify page should be removed, as it does not meet the quality standards of Wikipedia.

~~Eatmorepies~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eatmorepies (talk • contribs) 20:57, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Splitting the article?

Hi everyone! Just a thought, should we split the article? There are many subsections in "Criticism" that significantly add to the length of the article. And taking a quick look at "History", there are many elements there that would be better suited for different dedicated subsections, such as the information on Spotify Apps, SXSW partnership and headquarters. "2013-2016" etc. doesn't really explain much of the contents of yearly sections either, so named subsections would improve discovery. Thoughts? :) LocalNet (talk) 18:04, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Please Include the Discord Partnership Controversy

Spotify has partnered with Discord causing their player to pause usually for no reason while people are in a Discord call. This is definitely controversial especially as they can't actually know if you're listening to music or not, and you get no warning about this behavior whatsoever when you link the two applications. This violates the agreement for Spotify's own service in certain countries as when you pay, you never sign off on them pausing your music just because you use a voice application for 30s. So it's just a service interruption because Spotify can, as they have no way to and don't check if you're actually broadcasting music, just that your mic is hot (Sources below, and ref 2 is also relevant, sorry). AFAIK, this hasn't been done by any company before (but I'm probably wrong, it's difficult to source a negative), but for now at least there's a way to unlink the two applications reportedly (Sourced below, sorry).

I do think this is relevant to the Wikipedia article, as this is something recent that Spotify has done that's controversial, their only controversy definitely isn't with Apple ;). At least if it isn't controversial enough yet, I'm really thinking it will be one day soon, so just sit on it for a bit please.

(Extra sources, user feedback, including unlinking Spotify x Discord information)

• https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/7v0v42/whats_the_deal_with_this_spotify_auto_pause/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/7xkc9l/problem_with_spotify_autopause/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/7wh3g8/spotify_auto_pause_issues/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/discordapp/comments/7upakv/please_make_the_30_second_spotify_pause_toggleable/
• https://community.spotify.com/t5/iOS-iPhone-iPad/Music-pauses-every-30-seconds/td-p/4379632
• https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Spotify-keeps-pausing-songs-by-itself/td-p/4380618
• https://community.spotify.com/t5/Desktop-Windows/Song-randomly-pauses/td-p/4378034
• (Feb. posts and newer) https://community.spotify.com/t5/forums/v3_1/forumtopicpage/board-id/desktop_mac/page/6/thread-id/41470

192.0.239.103 (talk) 06:01, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

References

Spotify Stock market IPO NYSE on 3 April 2018

You might want to include the information that the predicted price was 132 dollars per stock, and the opening became 165.90 dollars. 157 million users. Never made profit. Huge losses last year. First trading day ended at 149.01 dollar.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2018/apr/03/markets-fall-china-us-tariffs-trade-war-ftse-dow-spotify-listing-business-live Per in Sweden (talk) 20:28, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/03/spotify-ipo-flag-error-swiss-sweden-first-day-trading Per in Sweden (talk) 22:35, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Removing the "criticisms" heading

It seems as though Spotify is the only article in the related industry that has a dedicated criticism section. For the sake of being neutral, not displaying a bias against Spotify, and not being commercially unfair, would it be possible to hold a discussion about removing this section?

This isn't going to happen. There is so much criticism of Spotify out there - covered by numerous reliable sources - it got spun out into a separate Wiki article. How much criticism of other streaming services is covered on other Wiki pages is irrelevant. Popcornduff (talk) 21:16, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't necessarily think that Spotify has had that much criticism considering it's one of the oldest on-demand streaming platforms out there. And I don't really think that it's irrelevant that Spotify has an oddly extra amount of content on criticism, as it comes across as though there's a bias against Spotify to me.

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You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:22, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

location_city

@Wikieditorswe, what do you mean by including one of the 20 offices and one of the two headquarters in this parameter without including 21 other? The company is registered in one city, it's not registered no where else. --Маргарита Бабовникова (talk) 06:06, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

Spotify have only one HQ and it's located in Stockholm, Sweden even if the company it's registered in Luxembourg due to the tax Wikieditorswe (talk) 21:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)