Spotify

On 19 May 2020, Spotify acquired exclusive rights to stream the popular podcast The Joe Rogan Experience beginning in September of that year, under an agreement valued at around US$100 million (equivalent to $119,100,000 in 2024). On 5 February 2020, Spotify announced its intent to acquire Bill Simmons' sports and pop culture blog and podcast network The Ringer for an undisclosed amount. On 19 November 2019, Spotify announced the acquisition of the exclusive rights to The Last Podcast on the Left. On 26 March 2019, Spotify announced they would acquire another podcast network, Parcast. On 6 February 2019, Spotify acquired the podcast networks Gimlet Media and Anchor FM Inc., with the goal of establishing themselves as a leading figure in podcasting.

Acquisitions, podcasting and exclusivity deals

This eligibility rule only applies to royalties for sound recordings, not musical compositions. Some of the premium options users may choose from include individual, duo, family, and student. Spotify operates under a freemium business model (basic services are free, while additional features are offered via paid subscriptions).
Audio files must either be in the .mp3, .mp4 (.mp4 files that have video streams are not supported), or .m4p media formats. All other streams of playjohnny casino registration selected songs outside of Spotify Radio and Autoplay remain commission-free. One such feature is a tool that Spotify rolled out in March 2023, called "Discovery Mode". In November 2021, Spotify launched the City and Local Pulse charts, aimed at representing the songs listened to in major cities around the world. In July 2021, Spotify launched the "What's New" feed, a section that collects all new releases and episodes from artists and podcasts that the user follows.
Instead, a 30% commission is applied to recording royalties generated from all streams of selected songs in Discovery Mode contexts—Spotify Radio and Autoplay. Spotify helps place songs campaigned through Discovery Mode on listeners' personal algorithmic playlists. The feature is represented by a bell icon on the app's main page and is available on iOS and Android. In December 2015, Quartz reported that songs in Discover Weekly playlists had been streamed 1.7 billion times.
In September 2020, Spotify, Epic, and other companies founded The Coalition for App Fairness, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in app stores. In 2019, under iOS 13, it became possible to play Spotify music using Siri commands. Additionally, Apple stated that they have attempted to work with Spotify to integrate the service better with Apple's products, such as Siri and Apple Watch.

• Spotify users can also ‘jam’ sessions where users can create and contribute live music playing sessions with their Spotify friends.
• If a song is “loved”, a custom radio channel will be created based on it, and when there are at least 15 of these songs, a “My Favourites” channel is unlocked.
• The Financial Times reported in March 2017 that, as part of its efforts to renegotiate new licensing deals with music labels, Spotify and major record labels had agreed that Spotify would restrict some newly released albums to its Premium tier, with Spotify receiving a reduction in royalty fees to do so.
• On 1 March 2021, Spotify confirmed that its platform would no longer have access to music from artists represented by Kakao Entertainment.
• Users find the relevant content to share and press a “soundwave-style barcode” on the display.
• A camera icon in the apps’ search fields lets other users point their device’s camera at the code, which takes them to the same content.

Streaming records

Spotify also announced that the third season of WNYC Studios' 2 Dope Queens podcast would premiere with a two-week exclusivity period on the service on 21 March 2017. In October 2022, Spotify acquired the Dublin-based content moderation startup, Kinzen. In July 2022, Spotify acquired Heardle, a Wordle-inspired music trivia game, for an undisclosed amount; Heardle was shut down in May 2023. In March 2021, Spotify acquired app developer Betty Labs and their live social audio app, Locker Room, On 12 May 2021.
Spotify offers DRM protected audio content, including over 100 million songs and 7 million podcast titles, from record labels and media companies. In doing so, if users chose to listen to one set of these artists' music, it effectively reduced the number of plays for other musicians. In 2021, a conspiracy theory began to take hold that Spotify was filling its playlists in some genres (including jazz, chill and "peaceful piano") with stock music attributed to a handful of little-known musicians, mostly Swedish, in an effort to meet demand for background music. In 2024, Spotify Wrapped, which has become a key marketing strategy for the company, was heavily criticised for appearing to rely on AI-generated content and producing uninteresting insights. He explained, "An extension of the internet radio craze of the early 2000s, Spotify would license content from record labels, and then support artists as people listened to their music." In March 2021, David Dayen argued in The American Prospect that musicians were in peril due to monopolies in streaming services like Spotify.

Premium-exclusive albums

Users can create, edit and share playlists, share tracks on social media, and make playlists with other users. Spotify gets its content from major record labels as well as independent artists and pays copyright holders royalties for streaming music. In March 2017, Spotify announced a partnership with the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference for 2017, presenting specific content in special playlists through an SXSW hub in Spotify's apps. On 14 November 2018, the company announced 13 new markets in the MENA region, including the creation of a new Arabic hub and several playlists.

Spotify for Artists

On October 6, 2025, Spotify announced a partnership with OpenAI to bring music and podcast recommendations inside ChatGPT, allowing Spotify users to discover and queue new music through conversations, rather than search. The Waze partnership allows Waze app users to view directions to destinations within the Spotify app and access their Spotify playlists through the Waze app. The integration also enabled Spotify within the SXSW GO app to help users discover and explore artists performing at the conference. In January 2015, Sony announced PlayStation Music, a new music service with Spotify as its exclusive partner.
Two days later, Apple responded, stating that the claim was misleading rhetoric and that Spotify wanted benefits of a free app without being a free app. In a further escalation of the dispute with Apple, on 13 March 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission over unfair app store practices. Spotify released the first version of its Apple Watch app in November 2018, allowing playback control of the iPhone via the watch.
In December 2021, Spotify acquired Whooshkaa, a podcast tech company that develops specialized technology that allows radio broadcasters to easily turn their existing audio content into on-demand podcast programming. In November 2021, Spotify acquired audiobook company Findaway, including its publishing imprint OrangeSky Audio. On 12 September 2019, Spotify acquired SoundBetter, a music production marketplace for people in the music industry to collaborate on projects, and distribute music tracks for licensing. Spotify stated that Sonalytic would be used to improve the company's personalized playlists, better match songs with compositions, and improve the company's publishing data system. In June 2015, Spotify announced they had acquired Seed Scientific, a data science consulting firm and analytics company.

• In February 2020, Spotify announced it would be featuring new songwriter pages and ‘written by’ playlists.
• On 19 June 2018, XXXTentacion’s hit single “Sad!” broke Swift’s single-day streaming record, amassing 10.4 million streams the day after he was fatally shot in Florida.
• On 31 January 2018, Spotify started testing a new Pandora-styled standalone app called Stations by Spotify for Australian Android users.
• Spotify launched in the United States in July 2011, and offered a six-month, ad-supported trial period, during which new users could listen to an unlimited amount of music for free.
• Years after growth and expansion, a November 2012 report suggested strong momentum for the company.
• Spotify thereafter announced it was planning to add more of these pages and playlists to highlight songwriters.

Contents

As of 2022, Spotify is the current sponsor of Spanish football club FC Barcelona, with music artists like Drake, Travis Scott and Ed Sheeran collaborating with the club by changing their shirts into their artist logo, sometimes used for album promotions. Users can search for music based on artist, album, or genre, and can create, edit, and share playlists. Operating as a freemium service, the basic features are free with advertisements and limited control, while additional features, such as offline listening and commercial-free listening, are offered via paid subscriptions. Like HBO Max, YouTube, and Instagram which are also running ads from the campaign, Spotify defended the advertisements by stating they were part of a government campaign, which complied with its ad policies and stated that users could provide feedback or thumbs-down such ads. Some liberal users responded by cancelling their subscriptions and calling for a boycott. According to journalist and author Liz Pelly, Spotify, "under the guise of AI-powered recommendations has developed a surveillance apparatus driven by emotion profiling and pseudoscience."

Direct public offering

The feature is powered by lyrics providers Musixmatch and PetitLyrics ja (only in Japan). The following November, the company began rolling out a web player, with a similar design to its computer programs, but without the requirement of any installation. In June 2012, Soundrop became the first Spotify app to attract major funding, receiving $3 million (equivalent to $4,039,000 in 2024) from Spotify investor Northzone. Offline Music listening is possible on watchOS and more recently added to Google's WearOS for those with premium subscriptions.