Spotify: a free jukebox

From the moment that Spotify was released in the Netherlands, the number of users of this online music service has been increasing. Spotify is originally a Swedish music streaming service, which includes more than 10 million songs. You have to sign up for one of the three services (free, unlimited, or premium), and subsequently you can download the stream and listen to music. The main difference between de free-account and the other accounts is the fact that you can listen to music for free, though up to a maximum of 20 hours a month. Furthermore, in contrast with the unlimited-account and the premium-account, the free service includes some advertisements.

Spotify makes it possible for the users to stream music online, and every account offers specific opportunities; such as the possibility to download tracks and listen to music on a smartphone. Furthermore, people don’t need CD’s or MP3’s anymore to listen to music.
Even though Spotify depends on whether you have access to the Internet, the number of users has been increasing over the past year, due to the large amount of music.


However, some things about the free account are going to change on May 1st. After you signed up, you can still listen to music up to 20 hours a month. However, after half a year the maximum will decrease to only 10 hours a month. In addition, free users will only be able to play each track up to a total of five times. Nevertheless, the unlimited-account and premium-account are not going to change at all.

Spotify seems to be a good alternative for illegal music downloading, because many people are obviously willing to pay for the service when it doesn’t costs too much money. However, I wonder whether Spotify actually will be able to break down music piracy.