Policy Question: using the Spotify API for an app with integrated music playback

[sebass-tian]

Hello everyone,

I am currently developing an app and want to ensure that our planned concept complies with the Spotify Developer Guidelines.

Concept of the App:

Our app is aimed at private hosts who organize parties and wish for the perfect musical accompaniment without having to create playlists themselves. The app uses a GPT model to generate personalized playlists based on some criteries (the party theme, mood, and the music preferences of the guests). These playlists are then played in our app in the exact specified order.

Key Points:

• Music Selection by GPT: The tracks are selected by a GPT model.
• Playback within the App: The generated playlists are played directly within our app.
• Spotify Premium Required: Users need to log in with their Spotify Premium account to play the music.
• Monthly Premium Subscription: Our app offers additional premium features (like more GPT-generated playlists, more criteries) for a monthly fee.

We want to ensure that we take all necessary steps to guarantee compliance and avoid any violations of Spotify's terms of use.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Best regards,

Sebastian

[tomjaimz]

Hi Sebastian.  I can give you some guidance on what to expect here.

Music Selection by GPT: Delicate territory.  How will you train the GPT model?  Using the Spotify API to train the model is not allowed.

Playback within the App + Spotify Premium Required: This is fine but not together with Monthly Premium Subscription.  If any part of your app offers streaming, it's considered a Streaming SDA and cannot be monetised.

Check out https://developer.spotify.com/policy#iv-streaming-and-commercial-use to understand more about these limitations.

[sebass-tian]

Hey Tomjaimz,

Thank you so much for your insightful and helpful response. We have already reviewed the laws, but a few points remain a bit unclear to me.

Music Selection by GPT: Our plan is to use a GPT model, like ChatGPT, to curate song recommendations. We would then access those songs on Spotify for playback.

Playback within the App: Is this functionality feasible? The user would need to connect their Spotify account to our app, and playback would only work if they have a Spotify Premium account. Does this involve actual streaming or just controlling Spotify remotely? There are some apps, like "Mixonset" wo are doing exactly this case of working.

Best regards and many thanks once again!

Sebastian

[tomjaimz]

About the GPT - Spotify's main concern is about training GPTs.  How will your GPT be trained?  If you could successfully show that the parts of your app that generate the list of tracks, and the part that then turns that into a Spotify playlist, are two different pieces and that the first does not require reading data from Spotify, you might be OK.  But just think about how you can present your app in such a way that won't cause Spotify to be concerned about you using data to train an LLM or GPT model.

About Playback - if you're talking about a mobile app, then the SDKs available today are remote control exclusively.  If your app is a web app, you can use the Web Playback SDK to incorporate playback directly into your app. 

[sebass-tian]

Dear Tomjaimz,

thank you a lot for your help. Remote control then means for a mobile app that Spotify must also be installed on the end device and our app then only accesses it and then “remotely controls” Spotify, so to speak?

What about the sale of subscriptions or advertising if we take the above into account?
And how can I thank you for your help, unfortunately I can't write to you directly 😉

Thanks a lot
Sebastian

[tomjaimz]

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thank you a lot for your help. Remote control then means for a mobile app that Spotify must also be installed on the end device and our app then only accesses it and then “remotely controls” Spotify, so to speak?

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Exactly that.  You can go to https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/ios or https://developer.spotify.com/documentation/android for more.

What about the sale of subscriptions or advertising if we take the above into account?

Still a no-no.  Section II point 14 of https://developer.spotify.com/terms is pretty specific.

And how can I thank you for your help, unfortunately I can't write to you directly 

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Feel like you just did dude. 🙂  You're welcome!