At least 30% of greek music GONE!

[kanellos]

Hi,

this morning I just discovered that a lot of greek tracks were missing from my playlists. And I mean a LOT! Many albums are completely grayed out and others partially. What is going on? Your greek library was already pretty lacking, but now it's almost useless!

Is this something that will be corrected or do we have to look around for better solutions?

PS. I have a Premium account and live in Germany. I've been using Spotify since the very beginning as I'm originally from Sweden.

//G

[Peter__]

If a lot of music goes missing it normally means a licensing deal has come to an end. 

Keep an eye on it, normally content does reappear. 

You will probably find all of the content is still available in the Spotify catalogue just not in Germany anymore. 

Peter

[kanellos]

I now learned that the exact same day that I discovered my destroyed greek playlists, Spotify was launched in Greece..

Coincidence..? Probably not. But I still don't understand why..

[kanellos]

Do we have any news on this problem?

Why are albums available on Ampya and Simfy but not on Spotify anymore??

The fact that they are available on other comparable services in the same country makes the disappearance even more mysterious 😮

Please Spotify, I would like an official feedback on this! I'm still watching my greyed out playlists and I'm starting to consider other options...

[Adam]

Hey @kanellos - there's not much more we can add to what Peter's already said. We know it's frustrating but content availability ultimately comes down to licensing agreements we have with labels and rights-holders. Ideally we'd have every track and every album by every artist available, but it's not currently possible.

More details here.

[moster67]

Yes, it is disappointing.

I live in Italy but I am originally from Sweden and I love Spotify so I can listen to my favourite Swedish artists. During the 6 months trial (free version with ads), I rarely found an artist/group from Sweden which was not available on Spotify - almost all were there.

However lately, many artists have selected songs in the albums "greyed out" (disabled) or even whole albums are all gone. For instance, very little is left of Magnus Uggla! There are other artists too. Unfortunately this trend seems to be increasing.

What is happening? Is Spotify having difficulties closing deals with artists and record labels as to the distribution rights? Are you trying to save money, perhaps only buying the rights, for instance of Swedish artists such as Magnus Uggla, to the Swedish market? This would be terrible if you made "selections" like that and if I find out that is true, I would unsubscribe from Spotify immediately.

Could you update us a little bit how you are making deals and negotiating with artists and record lables.

Thanks! 

[Peter__]

@moster67 - Much of Spotify's agreements and negotiations with big record labels happen privately (and confidentially) so to be honest the Spotify team are probably unlikely to be able to give you any more details. 

All of the information (which admittedly is vague) about missing content is outlined in this help page. 

[moster67]

@Peter,

Thanks for your input. As you say, the link is not worth much. Just of curiosity, presuming you are based in Sweden (with a Swedish IP-addres), if you look up Magnus Uggla, can you let me know how many albums you can see and if there are many songs disabled. Even if you are not from Sweden, said information would be appreciated nonetheless.

This would help me better understand if Spotify has struck a deal with Uggla's record label (in this test example) and perhaps only bought distribution rights for selected countries (such as Sweden and not Italy) or not. I hope we will see the same information since this means Spotify doesn't make any distinction as to the markets. I hope you don't mind helping me with this.

THanks.

[Peter__]

I'm actually based in the UK, and I can see (and play):

Interestingly, you can look directly into the Spotify catalogue and get back all of the albums and which country they are available in (although its a bit messy looking):

[moster67]

Thanks Peter!

I can see the same albums as you do.

However, the xml-link you posted confirms what I feared. As you say, by having a look at the territories-tag, you can see all markets where Spotify is allowed to reproduce the catalogue of an artist/record-label. The link you found regards albums but I am pretty sure there is an equivalent or similar xml-file for single songs. In this case, I was looking for the album "Den ljusnande framtid är vår" and from the xml-list I can see it is only available in the nordic countries so it is clear that a Swedish user can listen to that album while you and me cannot. In a certain sense, it makes sense since Uggla is a Swedish artist and 99% of his public is from Sweden or the rest of Scandinavia. However, Spotify has always been associated with the fact that you principally can listen to ANY song (in countries where Spotify is available). 

Now, the question is, for instance in this case, who decides which territories should be available? Is it Magnus Uggla and his record label (Sony) who limits the countries which are available? Or is it Spotify who says: we buy the rights for Magnus Uggla only for Scandinavia since most listerners are located there and in this way we save money?

Maybe when Spotify was available only in certain selected countries, they made deals with artists/record labels which perhaps covered distribution rights in all (few) countries where Spotify was present and they managed keep the costs down and this is why I could see and listen to most of Magnus Uggla's albums when I started out using Spotify here in Italy. However, now Spotify has expanded to many other countries and this probably means that Spotify would need to pay more since more countries are involved. While I can understand that, I still find it disappointing and with the possibility that this trend will continue, I think I will need to consider carefully whether to renew my subscription or not unless Spotify is prepared to pay more to get distribution rights for more countries and not only a handful selected ones.

Found this interesting article, although rather old, about Magnus Uggla and online streaming music:

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2009/08/hed-prefer-being-raped-by-pirate-bay-than-played-on-spotify-....

Of course, Magnus Uggla in this discussion is only an example. The artist can be anyone.