What is 'offline' vs purchased music

[mrfresh]

Hello -

I am trying to decide whether to get a paid for Spotify account.

I don't understand the difference between 'offline' (syncing playlist for use offline) and paid for music that I can buy per tune on your free account. I understand that if I buy downloads from you these are supplied as DRM free MP3s, and that I can do this on your free account, correct?

Question is, if I get Premium does this basically mean I can get 3333 (or whatever the sync limit is)  mp3s DRM free on my hard drive included in the package? Or if I want to have the DRM free MP3 would I still have to pay for it in addition to the monthly subscription?

Personally, I always want my music, DRM free on my hard drive, just in case you go out of business some day, and take my collection with you 🙂

[David]

Hello.

Welcome to the community.

Offline playlists are a Premium feature that allows you to download tracks onto your desktop or mobile device to play on a Spotify application. However, this is somewhat different to purchased tracks.

"Offline" allows you to store 3,333 tracks. These are stored in an encrypted format, that the Spotify application then decodes and plays as some lovely music. Purchasing tracks from our Download Store will allow you to have DRM mp3's on your computer, allowing you to download it to 3-5 computers (depending on the record label). You can find out more information about our download store here - and more about Offline Playlists here.

However, we have no plans of going out of business anytime soon. 

[mrfresh]

Thanks for the explanation. Just one thing - your reply said purchased tracks come as DRM MP3s, but here:

http://www.spotify.com/uk/about/downloads/

It says that purchased downloads are DRM free.

Please can you confirm which it is?

Thanks!

Eric

[mrfresh]

Can someone reply to this please? I really like Spotify but not sure whether to move from emusic and upgrade to Spotify premium and this (DRM) is a key factor in my decision!