Changes to Web API

[Loneliest_Cabin]

Folks, some news on changes to the web API has been posted on the Spotify For Developers blog.

We want to reiterate the main message from the blog that we're committed to providing a safe and secure environment for all Spotify stakeholders. As such we have recently made some important changes related to access to some of our endpoints and functionality. You can read the details on the blog: https://developer.spotify.com/blog/2024-11-27-changes-to-the-web-api

We are here to listen to any feedback you may have. 

[ricjuh]

Time to cancel my subscription then...

[Waldemarrr]

I will cancel my premium subscription. Spotify is turning away from users.

[BrokenH]

So sad. 
Not being able to see what tracks are on editorials, kind of broke my app. 
For artists to be able to monitor which they get added to for free. 
Really hope you'll reconsider to make it possible again, or maybe submit to get allowed to or something. 

[Karnay]

Are there any news on the topic? Many people are waiting for a response. What can we expect in the future? Is this a permanent change and there won't be a replacement.. If there is, when can people use it? Or is Spotify not saying anything about it and we just have to move to different apis?

I wanted to wait for a while but maybe I just have to use another Api.. 

[BorisVeres]

So Spotify not only f***s over artists, now they screw the developers and users too. Great job! Now I have finally a real reason to quit this platform. 

[BrokenH]

I really hope and have my fingers crossed, that we will be able to submit for access. 
I got the perfect app for all Spotify Artists, and all for totally free. 

Extension on endpoint "Get Playlist" for Spotify o... - The Spotify Community

Show some love and support. 🙌

[Esolitos]

As many, many, many more have already mentioned in this thread, I also had a python-based integration in which I put many hours of development. Having the API close like this without any replacement, is really a crappy move. 

Very much thanks Spotify.. 😞 

I've been a Premium subscriber for almost as long as Spotify existed, really not feeling staying much longer. Not just for this move, to be clear, but just another drop in the bucket.

I am aware that me being a single subscriber loss does not mean anything, but still.. I don't feel i'm the only one around with the same feeling. Back when You guys launched this service you had zero competition, but nowadays this landscape is different.

[joelytin]

I'm so devastated right now... I'm right in the middle of developing my university final year project. I don't know what to do 😭

[holamau]

"Algorithmic and Spotify-owned editorial playlists" - you can't even list Spotify-made playlists anymore through the `/playlists` endpoint. Like why?

"30-second preview URLs," - gone too.

[morrisMC]

Since a response from spctify has been awaited in vain, I suggest the following approach:

spatify is not without an alternative: so why don't we take what happened for what it is: a clear and cold statement from spotefy that it doesn't care about the Developers who have proven in the past that They care about spodify.

Many People are gathered here who share a good portion of annoyance at the way this platform treats its Users and fellow Campaigners. I sense that the same People also accumulate a great deal of creativity and expertise that should not be underestimated. Let's make something of it.

It's no coincidence that this change is happening exactly when everyone on twitter (aka “X”) is currently only concerned with their spitofy wrapped. But there are other ways than some PR to show sbotify that there are People who don't just accept the enshitification by companies like them.

Soundcloud, Deezer, Napster, Apple Music... Just to name a few companies that are a good alternative to spothify. We can find ways to stop supporting unacceptable behavior and instead actively take action against it. I strongly suspect that Some here are sitting on an old pile of bot armies, have access to some strong channels, or just know how to use powerful open source ai tools.


i would argue that there are countless legal ways to show sputify that their decisions can have consequences. Even if it's just a small info banner in services that no longer work, just to give a small example of where an affiliate link to Apple Music might be appropriate.

Do any of you have ideas and suggestions for how and where people could gather, exchange and organize?

As I suspect that this post won't be online for long. Maybe spotily will even be forced to shut down the whole community forum. “for security reasons” 😉

[adriapadilla]

I have been using the Top50 and other spotify-owned playlists from European countries to analyze the evolution of the music industry over the past two years. This work is purely academic, as I work at a European university where we focus deeply on cultural aspects. These playlists not only reflect the development of the music market but also capture cultural changes within society. They are invaluable for understanding social dynamics. Unfortunately, these studies have now come to an end, as access to this content via API has been removed without prior notice, despite the fact that the playlists remain publicly available.

From my perspective, blocking API access to these playlists makes little sense. I wonder if the cost of API requests truly justifies this decision. I understand the desire to protect data such as audio features, which are not visible in the user interface and could potentially be used to train AI models. However, I fail to see how granting access to official playlists could cause any harm. This decision seems highly questionable.

I wonder if Spotify could consider offering an alternative for continuing this kind of cultural research. Perhaps a dedicated academic program, similar to what other platforms provide, could be a solution. Alternatively, how feasible would it be to simply allow Spotify-owned playlists (which are public) to remain accessible via the API, just like the rest of the content?

[holamau]

Just don't be surprised if they close the API even more... They are adding walls to it. Removing the previews and the Spotify-published playlists are quite telling... either that or they are preventing as much as possible for ML to be accessing their API, which will eventually cause it to be completely walled and all 3rd party development to be much more regulated and allowed to certain entities (think of them only allowing specific car, smart appliance, software manufacturers)

[escherial]

I'm confused about the AI argument. Frankly, there's nothing all that novel in the audio analysis data that you couldn't extract with open-source tools; I imagine companies interested in getting that data for training models could just run the analysis tools themselves. IMHO this change exclusively impacts small, non-competing devs like me, who just want to animate the LED strips in my basement when playing music from Spotify. Now I'm left without an option as companies like Spotify become increasingly cagey about offering anything "for free" to paying subscribers like myself. I'd be willing to pay for access to this data if it's for a modest price, as I get it's not free to host it, but frankly I don't have high hopes of this changing...

Anyway, do any of you happen to know of an audio analysis API that's still maintained? Thank you to the other poster for mentioning AcousticBrainz, which is unfortunately defunct as of 2022 but will still cover some of my needs. I'd prefer if the API was offered from a music streaming service so I don't have to use two APIs (i.e., Spotify's API for playback info and some other API for track features), but anything would help.

[AndrewUA]

Also finished working on an app, which is now broken.

Logic of my app - get current playback. If context = playlist -> get playlist by ID. Getting playlist by ID is not working in some cases (e.g. for Release Radar)

😞

[hepcat81]

I made an app that let me view and play my playlists, albums, and all of my user top tracks.  I integrated the webplayer SDK into the app as well.  The main function was to display and order all the tracks by BPM (beats per minute).  It was a very useful function so I could basically use spotify as a metronome and easily find tracks in the tempo I want.  As a musicians this was a very helpful practice tool.  This update killed it.  Is there any plan on bringing back audio features or metadata endpoints?

[monogrant]

Feeling this pain hard too. I started building an app 3 weeks ago and was in the final stages of implementation when I suddenly stopped getting responses during my testing. When I hit refresh on the page, the audio-features endpoint test UI element was gone and a big red "Deprecated" badge appeared. Literally as I was building my app they cut it off at the knees. Super sad. A great source of music data that was fun to use, great source to learn about endpoints and data visualization is just gone.

[Brad34]

Please bring back the audio_features of tracks. I've been building an app for the past several months that relies on this endpoint heavily. I know whole communities of people who use this endpoint for organizing their music, it is super necessary for many users. 

[Brad34]

I would be willing to pay for these API endpoints, just don't cut us off completely

[holamau]

This is if they cared... Spotify's track record is not necessarily stellar when it comes to accommodating for users or developers, at least not recently

[jmpeters]

Hi, to any developers affected, my name is Jay Peters, I'm a reporter with The Verge  -- I'd be interested in talking more about any response to these changes, could you email me? My email is in my author profile: https://www.theverge.com/authors/jay-peters
-Jay