According to their blog, the Spotify music service has had to 'adjust' its catalog of music tracks due to restrictions being put on them from some unhappy record labels. On January 28th, the blog announced, "Unfortunately we are going to be removing a number of songs from our catalogue and adding country restrictions to some tracks, which may make them unplayable for you. Some tracks will be restricted from play in certain countries, this means that if you share tracks with friends who are in other countries it’s possible that they won’t be able to listen to them."
If you don't already know, Spotify is a music streaming service that you can access by downloading a free program (PC and Mac). The service differs from Web-based services such as Last.fm, Maestro.fm, Pandora, etc., by streaming the music straight to your desktop. At the moment the service is in Beta and you need an invitation to listen to the music for free. However, if you pay a subscription then you'll gain access to its entire music library and be given invitations to pass on to your friends and family.
The hurdle for Spotify to overcome will be to improve the user-experience when using their social network. Presently, when it comes to sharing songs and playlists with people in other countries, you may find that all they hear is silence. These days it is almost expected that streaming music services have to have some sort of integrated social network to be worth using. And so, if Spotify are going to compete in the streaming music sector of the market, then this is something that they will certainly want to resolve as soon as possible.
For more information on streaming music, consult the following articles:
- Listen to Hundreds of Free Internet Radio Stations Using Windows Media Player 11
- Use iTunes to Access Free Streaming Music
- Top 5 Streaming Music Sites
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