Announcements

Help Wizard

Step 1

NEXT STEP

Clarification on Multi-Platform App Compliance with Spotify Developer Terms

Clarification on Multi-Platform App Compliance with Spotify Developer Terms

I’m building a social music app and want to make sure the design stays fully compliant with the Spotify Developer Terms, especially Section IV.2 (“Do not create any product or service which is integrated with streams or content from another service.”).

High-level use case

  • Users can connect their Spotify account and/or an account from another major music streaming service.

  • The app shows some basic listening history in a social feed.

  • The app only displays metadata (track name, artist, album art URL, etc.) and never streams audio itself.

  • For playback, the app deep-links into the respective native app (Spotify links open in Spotify, the other service opens in its own app).

How we handle multi-platform content

To avoid “integrating streams or content” across services, we currently design it as follows:

  1. Clear attribution

    • Every item in the feed is clearly marked as “from Spotify” or “from another streaming service.”

    • Spotify content uses official branding per the design guidelines.

  2. No cross-service mixing

    • We do not mix, merge, or transform Spotify content together with content from the other service.

    • The app simply shows a single feed where each item is clearly attributed to its source. 

  3. No data transfer between services

    • Spotify data is never sent to the other service’s APIs, and vice versa.

    • Each service’s data is used only for display inside our UI.

  4. No audio playback in-app

    • We don’t stream or cache any audio from Spotify.

    • Playback always happens in the Spotify app via deep-links.

Questions about Section IV.2

What I’d like to clarify is how Section IV.2 applies to this pattern:

  1. Is it permitted for an app to display Spotify content in the same UI as content from another streaming service, as long as:

    • each item is clearly attributed, and

    • no streams/content are actually combined or mixed?

  2. When the terms say “integrated with streams or content from another service,” does that specifically mean:

    • technical integration/mixing of streams or content, or

    • any app that shows content from Spotify and another DSP in the same experience, even if separated and attributed?

  3. Are there any additional requirements or restrictions you recommend for this type of multi-platform “social activity dashboard” to ensure full compliance?

The app is still under development and not publicly launched yet, and I want to make sure we align with Spotify’s interpretation before going further.

Thanks in advance for any clarification you can share.

Reply
0 Replies

Suggested posts

Let's introduce ourselves!

Hey there you,   Yeah, you! 😁   Welcome - we're glad you joined the Spotify Community!   While you here, let's have a fun game and get…

ModeratorStaff / Moderator/ 4 years ago  in Social & Random