William Gallagher
Developers who provide the ability to transfer Spotify playlists to Apple Music, or other services, are reportedly being told their access to the Spotify SDK will be revoked.
As it continues to say Apple "threatens our collective freedoms to listen, create, and connect," Spotify has allegedly begun notifying developers that they can no longer transfer playlists to other services. SongShift reports that it has been told to cease such transfers or risk losing access to the Spotify SDK.
"The Spotify Developer Platform Team reached out and let us know we'd need to remove transferring from their service to a competing music service or have our API access revoked due to TOS [terms of service] violation," announced SongShift in a blog post.
"While this is not the news we wanted to hear, we respect their decision," it continued. As of the next release, SongShift v5.1.2, Spotify transfers will end. "This update is a painful one to push out to you all. We hope to continue to be of help with all your other music transferring needs."
Spotify has yet to comment publicly, and it is unclear why it would be enforcing this contractual condition now when its developer agreement has forbidden it since at least 2018. "Do not transfer Spotify Content... to another music service that competes with Spotify or the Spotify Service," says Spotify's developer agreement.
However, while SongShift appears to be the only developer to have formally announced this requirement, others seem to be preparing for it. A Google search on "Spotify Transfers," for instance, reveals a similar notice from the TuneMyMusic service — although that same notice cannot currently be found on the company's website.
Also, similar service FreeYourMusic said on Twitter that it will continue to do so, as "we use a different method (we stopped using their official SDK)."
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24 Comments
So I understand this correctly. Spotify repeatedly breaking Apple's App store Terms of Service is ok, but developers who break Spotify's TOS get access to Spotify revoked and perma-banned.
Also for consideration: Spotify breaking Apple's TOS: Good for Spotify (because we already saw they were never passing on a discount to their subscribers.) But third parties breaking Spotify's TOS: Good for consumers, as it lets users easily switch music services due to lock-in.
Let's see how long it takes Apple to suspend Spotify over this type of behavior. Your data should be your data, no matter the platform or "form" it takes.
Hardly upsetting. Apple does this type of thing all the time.
Hello pot. Meet kettle.
Oh, the rancid smell of hypocrisy.
Now all the folk who're whining about Apple having a monopoly in their own' shop, here we have an actual case of a company using its monopoly position to prevent other services entering the marketplace.
Spotify is not preventing other companies from setting up alternative playlists on the Spotify service.
Spotify is trying to use its market position to prevent other alternative services from being created OUTSIDE their shop.
If I don't like the way Apple runs the app store, I move to Android.
Spotify is trying to make sure that you're punished for moving away from your service, in the hope that it will stop other services from surviving.
Almost as bad as Amazon not allowing your books to be sold anywhere else if you sign up to KDP.