Spotify Denies Changing its Terms for Artists

Accusations have been circulating online that Spotify has modified its terms and conditions for artists, permitting it to transfer the rights to creators’ music, podcasts and audio books to third parties.

The claims:

• Entertainment attorney Krystle Delgado summarizes the update here.

• In it she acknowledges that the T&Cs don’t apply to music creators, as they are the terms of service for someone using Spotify.

• She then states: “Well, let me ask this question: You, music creator that has your music on Spotify, do you happen to have a personal Spotify account of which you consume music through? If the answer happens to be yes, then you absolutely, as a music creator, have agreed to this contract.”

The response:

• Spotify has issued a statement saying the updated terms do not “govern Spotify’s rights to use artists’, podcasters’, creators’, or authors’ creative works.”

• Instead, it claims the terms govern what “listeners can and cannot do on our platform.”

• The terms enable Spotify “to display features such as user-created custom playlist covers, user comments on podcasts, and user-created playlist titles.”

• It concludes: “The recent changes to our listener Terms of Use do not impact how artists’, podcasters’, creators’, and authors’ music, shows, and/or audiobooks are distributed on our platform, what rights they retain, or what Spotify does with their work.”