Spotify

Today, royalties on all streaming services, including Spotify are paid on a per user basis not per stream as this allows the artists who users listen to the most to receive the largest percentage of the payouts. In October 2017, Microsoft announced that it would be ending its Groove Music streaming service by December, with all music from users transferring to Spotify as part of playjohnny casino registration a new partnership. In 2016, Spotify was criticized for allegedly making certain artists' music harder to find than others, as these artists would release their music to the rival streaming service Apple Music before releasing it to Spotify.

• 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.
• 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.
• Ek stated that “We’re giving people the best free music experience in the history of the smartphone.” This limitation does not apply to Android and iOS tablets, or computers.
• Two more partnerships were announced in March; one with WNYC Studios, and one with Waze.
• Spotify first announced a voice-activated music-streaming gadget for cars in May 2019.
• On 26 March 2019, Spotify announced they would acquire another podcast network, Parcast.

Spotify for Artists

Pelly advocated for a move away from the current royalty model that says the artists who people listen to the most should make the most money toward a more generalized approach where the decision for who gets paid rests with industry or government bodies, not audiences. 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. Other artists and podcasters, such as Joni Mitchell, Nils Lofgren, Brené Brown, and Crosby, Stills, & Nash, also announced a boycott of Spotify. This policy was revoked in June because the company deemed the original wording to be too "vague"; they stated that "Across all genres, our role is not to regulate artists.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 response to the allegations about unfair compensation, Spotify claims that it is benefitting the industry by migrating users away from unauthorized copying and less monetized platforms to its free service tier, and then downgrades that service until they upgrade to paid accounts. Spotify distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights-holders, who will then pay artists based on their individual agreements.

Social Media

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. It distributes approximately 70% of its total revenue to rights holders (often record labels), who then pay artists based on individual agreements. Unlike physical or download sales, which pay artists a fixed price per song or album sold, Spotify pays royalties based on the number of artist streams as a proportion of total songs streamed.

Features

• Armchair Expert announced on Instagram that the podcast would be available exclusively on Spotify beginning 1 July, saying they would continue to maintain the same creative control over the show after the move.
• 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.
• 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.
• On 3 July 2020, cybersecurity firm VPNMentor discovered a database containing 380 million individual records, including the logins and passwords of Spotify users.
• In March 2021, Spotify acquired app developer Betty Labs and their live social audio app, Locker Room, On 12 May 2021.
• Audio files must either be in the .mp3, .mp4 (.mp4 files that have video streams are not supported), or .m4p media formats.

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. 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".

Playlists and discovery

In March 2023, Spotify announced a partnership with Patreon, which Spotify claimed would "enable creators to expand their creative business through direct payments from fans, and allow fans to listen to their Patreon content on Spotify". In May 2022, Spotify announced a partnership with the online game platform and game creation system Roblox, the partnership saw Spotify as the first streaming brand to have a presence within the game with the launch of "Spotify Island". 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 December 2013, CEO Daniel Ek announced that Android and iOS smartphone users with the free service tier could listen to music in Shuffle mode, a feature in which users can stream music by specific artists and playlists without being able to pick which songs to hear. Later that month, Spotify also acquired MightyTV, an app connected to television streaming services, including Netflix and HBO Go, that recommends content to users. While the streaming music industry in general faces the same critique about inadequate payments, Spotify, being the leading service, faces particular scrutiny due to its free service tier, allowing users to listen to music for free, though with advertisements between tracks. In May 2017, Spotify introduced Spotify Codes for its mobile apps, a way for users to share specific artists, tracks, playlists or albums with other people. The company also introduced "Spotify Running", a feature aimed at improving music while running with music matched to running tempo, and announced that podcasts and videos ("entertainment, news and clips") would be coming to Spotify, along with "Spotify Originals" content.