Have premium membership, how do I download music?

[laurien71]

Hello everyone,

New to Spotify and just paid for my premium membership. Could someone tell me how I can download music to my PC?

Thanks!

[Hummingbird90]

Yeah, Spotify calling the Premium feature the ability to "download", download being the operative word, is SEVERELY misleading.  My listening device is a 2 gig iPod Shuffle and I wanted to be able to get some more music at a better price than iTunes.  If I cannot OWN the music, the word used to describe acquiring music off of Spotify should not, in my opinion, be DOWNLOAD, which to most people means "I own it, it is mine."  

Of course I figured there would be a limit on the amount of tracks you could download in a month, and of course there are a lot of people for whom this setup works, and that is fine.  But I really think a better, more correct word is in order.  I almost gave my money to this service thinking I was going to get something for it.... thankfully I did not.  I will stick with the annoyingly irrelevant ads.

On a positive note, maybe, I would love for Spotify to be able to maybe synch with Google in the future and advertise to me products that I would actually use, or at least see what I am listening to and advertise music I would actually listen to.  I think they would get further with their ads if they were more relevant to the user.  

[pacojones]

Actually I feel kind of misleaded by Spotify Premium account with the abbility to "download" songs.

The disclaimer:

https://www.spotify.com/pt/#premium

Although it is written in Portuguese it states "Download musics and listen offline in high quality audio". For download I assume the possibility of selecting something, transfer that something to my computer and there is it. If I download an e-book, a video or anything on the web I get the file (ex.: PDF..) to my computer so I'm able to open it with my PDF reader.

I believe the disclaimer should say something like "Listen offline musics in high quality audio with Spotify client" so it would be explicit that users are not able to download the songs files.

Don't get me wrong I understand that it may not be possible to actually download songs files, but feel kinda cheated by the disclaimer that lead me to subscribe premium. I don't see the need to have a Premium account to have to install a client and select the songs that I want to have offline, because when I login into Spotify usually I don't know what I will listen, I see Spotifiy as "sing me something new" thing.

[Peter__]

Ultimately it comes down to the ownership vs licensing argument. When you download an e-book, you have purchased it so you "own" that copy of it. With Spotify (and most other streaming services), you are only licensing content (for a monthly fee) so you never own it, hence why you can't move it outside of the Spotify ecosystem. It that was possible, you could essentially download the whole catalogue then cancel your subscription and walk away with all of the music you wanted for almost no cost. 

This is something that comes up every now and again, but Spotify's argument has always been there is nothing that isn't true in that sentence.

[pacojones]

Hi Peter,

I think that in the last part of my post I agreed that it is understandable that download as the act of  getting the mp3 file is not possible.

About downloading as we know it (the possibility of getting a file with the content, in this case a song), you are partially correct but mostly wrong. Let me explain:

1. It would no be feasible to download the full catalogue;

2. As a Spotify user, I see that the first month I would download a bunch of songs, yet the following months I would download one or two new hits;

3. iTunes charges about 1€ per song to download. If Spotify would charge 6.99€ por month and allow downloading, most people would download monthly a couple of songs, so you would actually be selling one song per 2€ aprox.

So basically I believe the ability to download songs will be a reality, but you just didn't get there yet, for reasons that surely I'm not aware.

But regarding subscribing the premium account itself, the disclaimer that lead me to purchase premium account stated the possibility to download. If downloading for you seems like "yeah you didn't want anything else would you?" imagine to us customers to buy something that states "you can download" but when you try to, and you dig into the subject you find out that "we stated that you could download but you didn't think you could actually download didn't you silly?"

This is what I felt after discovering that although Spotify states is possible to download in the end it is not possible. What is written in this thread about download should have a paragraph or a little number ponting to a footer in the disclaimer (the same place where customers put their credit card number, not inside a forum thread) stating that downloading is possible exclusivelly to an offline tool that allows users to listen in offline mode. As customer I feel cheated and already canceled my premium account. Additionally I expect a refund of the 0.99€ * 3 months that Spotify states that are ont refundabble (seems to be a nice way of getting money from people... 0.99€ * 3 months * millions of users....)

If this issue arises now and then don't you think something is wrong? Or are online users so dumb that they don't understand just like that that download means listening to musics in an offline tool?!?

[Peter__]

I don't work for Spotify, so what I said above is just my opinion but I feel that the people "confused" by the wording are possibly ones who are not fully educated about what streaming/licensing content really means (which is maybe something Spotify should do better). In my eyes, Spotify will never offer downloads you can walk away with as part of a subscription. 

If you haven't already done so, you will need to get in touch with the customer services team directly using the online contact form to take up that refund request with them. 

If you get an automated email reply back directing you to the community or help pages, you need to reply directly to that email (even if its from no-reply) and one of the customer services agents will get back to you as soon as possible.

[sweetsmusic]

My 2 Cents:   

The definition of "Download" is:  copy (data) from one computer system to another, typically over the Internet. and/or  to receive data to a local system from a remote system.

Spotify is fully aware of that meaning.  Spotify is also fully aware that using the world "Download" is the hook in the fish's mouth.  We fish have been hooked.  

There is only one remedy that will satisfy the artists ,whose music we enjoy, and we, the fish.  The word "Download" should be removed from the site and any written or spoken content as it relates to any subscriptions, especially since it is a false statement for Spotify to make the suggestion or inference based on the fact that they are NOT providing users the ability to "Download."

I have been listening to Spotify for quite a while and when the adds come on, I ignore them.  As soon as they start talking, I shut my brain off or step out of the room.  If you asked me what ads I've heard on Spotify, I couldn't tell you.

Knowing Spotify's intentional misuse of the word "Download," I have no intention of continuing the premium subscription beyond the 3 month period.  The day before it expires, I will be canceling.   The alarm is set in my phone.  This was a test and Spotify failed big time.

[manuelfigueroa2]

If you like to own the music.....you need to get Itunes. 

[user-removed]

Is it possible to make a song/abum available 'offline' (download) without creating a 'Playlist'..? Please say there is!

Cheers,

Andy.

[GoBucks1234]

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@manuelfigueroa2 wrote:

If you like to own the music.....you need to get Itunes. 

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I think itunes has DRM technology that limits what you can do. If you want to "own" or license the music to work anywhere and on everything, use amazon mp3. It has no DRM (minus a tag/watermark indicating it was you who got the music).

[NorthSanctuary]

How do you download your "songs" category under "My Music" on PC? I can do it on my phone by tapping the slider at the top, but there's no such thing on PC. Is this just something they overlooked or is it restricted for a reason?

[MattSuda]

@NorthSanctuary 

The ability to download the songs section hasn't been added to the desktop app yet.

To download them you will need to copy them all to a new playlist by pressing (CTRL + A or CMD + A) and then dragging them over to that new playlist. Then you can download that playlist.

[Raffimetz]

I did that on my phone and it didmt work

[NorthSanctuary]

Ahh, I had a feeling it was that way. Well, I hope they fix it soon.

[numberkruncher]

Why do you use the word "download" when clearly this is not a download service but a streaming service? (as I found out too late).

I was led (misled) to believe I could download music to my laptop - which is why I signed up for the Premium service. For me the attraction was to compile playlists from various artists without having to buy complete albums with tracks I didn't want. I planned to burn my music onto CDs which I could then play on my home hi-fi or my car cd player both of which have far better sound quality than my tinny old laptop.

Spotify should have made it much clearer that this is not a download service, and from what I have read on these posts so far I am not the only one who appears to have been misled into subscribing to something that doesn't do what it implies.

No point me having this, so will unsubscribe.

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@Joe wrote:

Good choice - welcome 🙂

Spotify doesn't sell music but allows you to stream songs from one of the largest online catalogues. With an active Premium subscription, you can stream music to any device on which you have spotify installed at high quality in any country. You can also download music to your devices for offline listening. For the price it's so much better than buying downloads.

Have a read of the Guides which explain how to get the most out of your subscription and please ask if you have any more questions.

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[LordZiffell]

Yep I have to agree. Whilst I can see one side of the "have music anywhere via streaming" argument the reality is we don't all have 100MB internet pipes or unlimited downloads and mobile plans are even worse on quota.

Additionally my reason for getting sucked in was to save the effort involved in turning all of my old lps into mp3s ( a long and painstaking process). Having already paid for the music once i don't see why I should have to pay for it again.

I appreciate the attempt to have a different business model and in my view anything that returns income to the artist and not the music industry should be highly applauded. I would rather the artists had their own distribution model and then what we pay for the music goes directly to them.

Anyway I will also be unsubscribing as whilst it may have novelty value it isn't worth a $150 bucks a year for nothing tangible. I feel a bit foolish as well as I ummed and arrred for ages before finally deciding to take the plunge. Not particularly happy that i got sucked in. Perhaps that's why I have resisted Spotify and variants for so long. Always trust your first impressions.

[denalynn2001]

There seem to be a lot of people here who think Spotify is misleading them by using the word "download" in describing Premium services. However, to download something is not the same as to own it. When I check out an e-book from my library, I can download it to my tablet on the Kindle app for convenient offline access, just like I can download music from Spotify so I can listen to it offline. It certainly does not follow from this that I can then transfer this content to other formats and do whatever I want with it, no matter how much I might want to do that.

The main problem here is that certain concepts like streaming content and licensing versus buying are still fairly new and a lot of people just do not understand how they work yet. I think Spotify pretty much delivers exactly what is on the label, however. I am completely baffled as to why anyone would think they can pay just a few dollars a month here to own catalogs of music that would cost them infinite amounts to purchase elsewhere, assuming they were paying for it at all. 

Obviously if you do not have the right conditions to take advantage of Premium, it doesn't makes sense to pay for it. That is not the fault of the service.

[MagentaGhost]

There is a solution to all of this, although it won't work for every user. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it yet - just record the songs as they're playing. How simple or complex it is depends on what device you're using, your hardware, software, the settings and where you are listening. For a desktop or laptop you will need software that can record the audio as it plays. There should be plenty of programs available that can do this. For the best quality make sure that it records the audio while it's still in the digital form. In other words, before it gets converted to analog (and sent to your speakers, headphones, etc.). If you don't want to sit there and place track markers while you're recording, then you don't have to. You can do it later. Another way is to use the digital output, if you have one. Connect that to your digital recorder (CD, MD, DAT, whatever you use). You can use the analog output if you want to, but again for best quality and simplicity use the digital. Again, you can either place track markers as they play or do it later, but this depends on your type of recorder and it's capabilities. If you don't have a digital output on your computer (which are usually optical or coaxial), you should be able to use the USB port and an external converter box that has those digital outputs. I have very little experience with cell phones or tablets so I can't help you out if that's the device you use for listening on. Although, if it has a USB jack that can output a digital signal, the previously mentioned method may work for you as well. Some USB jacks on phones are only for charging the battery. You'll have to do your own checking on this. These methods are not as convenient or as fast as just downloading but at least you will have the music in your possession to do whatever you want with. Try it out and post what your results are. Good luck and happy listening.

[LordZiffell]

My point is however that I have already bought the music I want to download. I have it all on my approx. 1000 vinyl lp’s. I don’t see why I have to buy it again.

[scrollworkman]

My daughter paid $119 for the premium and it doesn't allow me to download.How do I tell her Spotify screwed her over.?