Changes Coming To Spotify

Music service Spotify has gone from strength to strength since its debut in 2008 on the web, providing free online music that can be listened to solely on your computer, but now as developments are made, so too must some changes to how the software works and the limitations on the music available. Previously, users could download Spotify Open (or Spotify Free in America) to access virtually any type of music they chose, with new albums uploaded often on the day of release, with the only 'drawback' being that a series of advertisements would be played after four or five songs had been listened to in a row. More recently, a limit to the number of hours listeners could use the free program was placed, allowing 20 hours of music per month before the user had to stop until the next month or join the premium Spotify, whereby they paid £10 a month for unlimited music with no ads that could be then used on the go, be it with iPods or MP3s (admittedly this is the one that furthest streches the question of whether this can be considered music piracy). However, oweing to the increasing popularity and thus noticability of Spotify on the internet, its programmes revealed yesterday that new limits would be placed on Spotify Open to restrict the amount of music that can be listened to permenantly. Now, users of the free software will get just ten hours of music per month, and this will also entail a restriction whereby you may only listen to a track five times maximum before it becomes permenantly unavailable to you. Already, fans of the service have voiced outrage at the move, and it may be that the company decides to go back on its choice at some point in the future or at least take away the no. of listens restriction (their reason for this is so that specific bands do not lose a significant amount of money from their fans simply listening to their music for free), and I myself do find it a tad hard to understand why we could not have been given more notice than five months- expect the changes to be implemented some time around October- even if the reasons behind the move are solid enough. Either way, that's what happening on Spotify, so let us know what you think!