Why do Spotify remove songs from the service?

[rjnicko]

Okay so having been a Spotify premium user for several months and enjoying the service, I come today to discover that one of my favorite collections "The Dark Side of Classical Music" has been replaced by utter garbage tracks in the totally wrong key and sound nothing like the ones I enjoyed listening to. I'm not very happy that they can just remove tracks off the service like that and I would really like an explination, its not just this collection either, during the summer some of my other tracks disapeared off the service as well.

I don't see why I should be dictated to what I can and cant listen to on my Mac and iDevices when I'm paying good money for a service and to be honest if things continue my money could be spent better elsewhere. Not very impressed at all. 

I would be very appricateive of an explination as to why this seems to be an on going thing.

thanks Ryan 

[user-removed]

Hey there!

Some songs are deleted by artist or record label request. Sometimes those songs will be back.

There is always unavailable songs or even bands like Metallica. They choosed to keep music out from streaming.

And some rightholders want to pull music out by other reason.

Spotify is not removing any song itself, only by request of right holder.

If you need missed tracks back to Spotify, I would suggest to contact to record label and tell them how you discovered music in Spotify and would like to discover even more... maybe they change mind. 🙂

[rjnicko]

what I'm saying is if they cant promise permenant acess to the songs and collections then why even bother? What the heck am I paying money monthly for? So annoyed it was such a good album, looks like I"m gonna have to buy it on CD or Vinyl. I guess Spotify has an extremely long way to go before it will be able to replace good old physical media.

[user-removed]

Hey there!

Spotify costs only 10 € in month / Premium. With this price you ged 18 Million globally released tracks. In Finland there is for example 22 Million tracks in Spotify. Globally and locally released. The content varies from market to market in Spotify.

If you need missed tracks back to Spotify, I would suggest to contact to record label and tell them how you discovered music in Spotify and tell them that you would like to discover even more... maybe they change mind. 🙂

Spotify is not removing tracks itself, record labels are removing tracks sometimes. Reasons? Many. Sometimes they just try how Spotify works or if they want to see what happens when popular song will be removed. For me I just search something else to listen in this situation.

[rjnicko]

thats all fine and dandy, but you cant really just search for something else to listen to with the likes of Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart etc. some of the greatest composters of our time, thankfully I just found the whole album on iTunes. for 5.99

[cosbos]

The record companies is the one to adress, not spotify. But spotify is owned by the record companies, so there is a complicated matter. I am very satisfied with spotify. I discover new and good music in every styles, and for me it is essential that I can play on demand, the radio-like services dont suit me at all... last fm sometimes, but I use spotify a lot more.

People that complain over that they can not find everything must have in mind that spotify`s monthly cost is half of a cd-album.

I have had some periodes when it comes to listening to music the last two years. Classical music-pop,rock, -jazz-indie-world. The top names is there.

I like good covers, and that is another matter. Searching for songs I know, gives some good results, but also a lot of garbage. Tribute to-made famous by,etc..... Very bad quality, and often the same bad version in several wrappings. I think spotifies good word an reputation would earn on removing this.

But all in all, spotify is brilliant, and very good value for money.

[cosbos]

Spotify is in fact very good on classical music! Search and discover!

[xaverius]

I share your feelings, Ryan.

Being a Paul Kalkbrenner fan myself, "Berlin Calling - The Soundtrack" is one of my favourite albums. 
I noticed a few weeks ago that the majority of tracks aren't available anymore. 

I absolutely adore Spotify, but the fact that record companies can remove tracks, or even entire albums, is something i did not sign up for... and even if i did sign up for this (i never read the terms of agreement - who does anyway?), i think the least Spotify could do, is to warn the user that tracks are being removed... With some kind of explanation.

To recognize the flaws in your system is also customer friendlyness, and would be appreciated.

[TECH101]

just like the movie industy...

As for "just because they want to see what happens when they remove their songs"  .. I don't beleive this for a bit.

They know what they are doing, even if its a mistake, they know this and pull it.......   

My reason is the same as the movie industies.....  Is because licenses expire. and whatever reason, they choose not to be part of Spotify anymore, or that particular song/track expires its license and they choose not to renew.

Which is bad...    but one they they all will learn.... Unfortunatly, they choose to do this the hard way...

WHy ?   SImple reason....  They are preventing piracy ..... but if no longer find your favourite song, the nest/ logical place your gonna turn to is piracy, if Itunes doesn't have it, but quite fankly, piracy sounds better and better all the time, regardless what those companies say....

Just give people the music on Spotify, and we'll choose Spotify...... Eveyone wins anyway...

[smartarz]

Spotify have songs removed so you will buy them. It may not be them but the have to obey the labels they are partnered with. For exmaple, you decide you're hooked on a song. So you "offline mode" it. Once you've listened to that track a certain number of times, it's clear that you don't own it but would like to. So they are asked to remove it so that you buy it from. SIMPLE!!! 

[Sam]

smartarz - That's not really true. It's often a lot more innocent than that, like a change in rights holder or label. No matter the reason, we'll do our upmost to get any content that's been removed from Spotify back on the service.

[rosskgreenwood]

Two albums that I've been listening to extensively were both removed from Spotify today.  I understand that this is not Spotify's choice and has more to do with content liscences and agreements with rights holders.  But still, this creates a really terrible user experience, given that I'm paying $10/month for this service.  And Spotify can't pretend that they don't have at least some bargaining power in the equation.

I'm just going to illegally download both of these albums.  Spotify should make sure that its content partners know this-- whenever you take down something I want to listen to, I'm just going to find a way to listen to it for free.  If Spotify can't convince its content partners to keep their songs up more consistently, I'll seriously consider cancelling my Premium subscription and going back to torrenting everything I listen to.

[BernieDrones]

Agreed. My number of starred songs just dropped dramatically, and I am a bit disappointing that I can't stream this songs over Spotify. While I realize that it isn't really Spotify's fault, i feel as though the license should renew itself before the songs are randomly dropped from the database, especially since some of us are supporting this service in order to listen to these specific artists. I feel that a new agreement should be made between spotifuggle and the license holders, seeing as both parties are receiving negative repercussions due to this process.

[Soaro]

Same here, when a big chunk of your playlist get truncated by that, you suddenly lost interest in opening your spotify as you know you won't find what you want..

You've dropped a lot of artists/albums yesterday. Is it temporary? Are they gonna be back soon?

Edit: Well, most of them are back apparently, thanks

[AlleG]

Well, that really sucks for me too. But more confusing is that part of music is removed, and part is still there (like for example most of Aventura albums, but they "lost" Live @ Madison Square Garden ... thats pretty strange. good that i didnt resync my iPod in last days....

[user-removed]

Hey there!

This is only solution for a while. Spotify ask you soon to reconnect to service, so they can verify youre the Premium subscriber. When you do this, your "lost" album will be updated to not available. If you choose to not let Spotify connect to servers, in this device music will be removed ...

I can promise that Spotify is working hard to ask back as much content as possible :))

[mikeylow]

I understand the logic behind removing songs. Only problem is when you've spent time building up a list and then the songs get removed without you knowing. 

Recently I realised that one of my songs was removed from my playlist and Spotify in general. I tried buying the song online but had difficulty locating it.

What would be awesome was if Spotify notified you if they were removing a song that you had in your playlist and a link to where you could purchase it!

[Peter__]

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@mikeylow wrote:

I understand the logic behind removing songs. Only problem is when you've spent time building up a list and then the songs get removed without you knowing. 

Recently I realised that one of my songs was removed from my playlist and Spotify in general. I tried buying the song online but had difficulty locating it.

What would be awesome was if Spotify notified you if they were removing a song that you had in your playlist and a link to where you could purchase it!

---

Hey! Welcome to the community 🙂 

It sounds like you are requesting the same functionality as being asked for in this topic over on the Ideas Exchange so be sure to add your kudos and comments of support there too. 

Unfortunately, it is unlikely Spotify would link you to another service to download the track however, Spotify used to have a built in download store which has been removed. You can also show your support to bring that functionality over on this idea even though it has been marked as "Not right now". 

Peter

[felixmercer]

^This. This is exactly what it is, the labels trying to squeeze more money out of people. Surely in a post-napster world they would know which side their bread is buttered. Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or something like that.

[Ultimation]

Some record lables seriously have some issues. They're the equivelant of "old guard" Republicans I have to deal with (I'm a party ...um, official) all the time who want to stay in 1950 and refuse to tap into new media.

I take note of labels that don't want their artists to be listened to and make a point to not give them any more of my money. So frustrating when an album you could listen to (and they got paid for) a week ago is gone the next. Ugh had to rant.