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Spotify Seeking to Bar Apps That Transfer to Other Music Services From Using SDK

attilavago85 said:
Then you need to read the GDPR law, which I have and had to pour through long documents compiled by expensive law-firms to grasp just how huge the requirements were. It very clearly states that a service must give you a method that allows you to download and delete all your personal data. That can be as simple as having a contact email with a human downloading your data for you from the database directly or highly automated like Facebook does, but the feature absolutely has to be there! Spotify went for the automated version of generating that data, so now they should legally be bound to satisfy the requirement. The API is already there, has been for ages, but Spotify now claims the transfer apps are not using it the way it was intended.
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Yep, this is why Google allowed you to download everything tied to your account, even all your YouTube videos, comments and history.
 
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Drats. I’m an avid songshift user. Loyal Apple Music fan who cannot let go of my iCloud music library but there are a few artist playlists on Spotify that I like, and use songshift to transfer the playlists over... I must say it felt too good to be true
 
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I kept a free Spotify account around to access my old playlists I had since before Apple Music was a thing. Used SongShift to move things over and now I can safely delete my Spotify account.

This is just spiteful, because all public playlists are available online in a regular browser. Any web scraping service can easily see that info. It’s just that they want it to make it harder for users to move their content.

Case in point, access to all playlists and albums is public:
 
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az431 said:
There is nothing in the GPDR that requires a company to "let you leave with your data" whatever that means. Even if there was, Spotify could satisfy that by providing you with a list of songs in your playlist. It would not be required to create an API so rival companies could access such data.
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General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) “Right of Access.” The right says that, when requested, any company should be prepared to provide you with your personal data. They should provide it in a way that’s easy for you to read, in a timely manner, and with enough background information for you to understand how they got it and how they use it.
 
Pretty sure you don't need their API to migrate a playlist OUT of spotify- the web view looks perfectly scrapeable, as long as the playlist is public
 

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techfreak23 said:
While I'm heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Music is still missing one critical feature that Spotify has had for years. Spotify Connect. That feature alone is invaluable as I tend to use my all of my devices for consuming audio. I can seamlessly pass the audio through a different device. I can start a playlist on my phone, continue it on my watch, continue it on my computer while working, back to my phone when leaving, etc.. After 5 years, they still don't have a feature like that. AirPlay is near useless in most situations, unless you happen to have a bunch of AirPlay enabled devices.

Spotify even introduced a cool feature earlier this year or sometime last year that builds on Connect by allowing two local users to share a playlist and play the same song from each of their devices. Not something I've used much, but the times I have, it was pretty cool.
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That’s one of the features I can’t seem to give up. Swiping to add to queue. I’m also very used to the interface.

Those and a few other features that Apple Music lacks are preventing me from leaving Spotify. As much as I want to...
 
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Um. I literally need this for my business. Clients send me Spotify playlists, which I then convert to Apple Music for purchases on the iTunes store. Shady move.
 
This is hypocritical, and only hurts customers. I only use song shift so I can get my Spotify playlists on my apple watch. If their Apple watch app could do streaming this would be less of an issue for me. But I am angry at both Spotify and Apple.
 
I thought Spotify promotes consumer freedom. This is anticompetitive. Users should be afforded the freedom of choice. Their library are their creative work, and they should have the right to export it.
 
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HacKage said:
Of course you can switch out of their service. You just can't use Spotify's SDK to transfer Spotify's content to another service.
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You de facto cannot move you library without SDK. If you move one by one that’s gonna take a few months.
 
MacRumors said:


Spotify is reportedly seeking to admonish developers who use its API for apps that allow users to transfer to a rival music streaming service, such as Apple Music, by revoking access to the Spotify SDK.

spotify-app-icon.jpg


Developers who facilitate users with the ability to copy their Spotify library and playlists to other services are being informed that their access to the Spotify SDK is to be revoked.

Music streaming service transfer app SongShift has issued a post saying that it has been told to stop offering transfers away from Spotify or it will lose access to the Spotify SDK.



Spotify has allowed SongShift to continue offering transfers into its service, however. Only transfers out to other streaming services have been blocked.

The move is backed by Spotify's developer agreement, which states that developers should not "transfer Spotify Content... to another music service that competes with Spotify or the Spotify Service."

In recent months, Spotify has heavily criticized Apple for anti-competitive behavior. The company has joined the "Coalition for App Fairness" to "fight back" against Apple, sided with Epic Games over its ongoing dispute with Apple, and formally complained to the European Comission about Apple allegedly stifling competition, resulting in an EU antitrust investigation.



The move to actively prevent users from transferring away from Spotify, thereby constraining competition, seems peculiar as the company has railed against Apple for supposedly doing the same. Interestingly, Apple has not instituted any equivalent bar on transferring away from Apple Music to other streaming services.

Article Link: Spotify Seeking to Bar Apps That Transfer to Other Music Services From Using SDK
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Oh the hypocrisy 🤣
 
Thanks Spotify for letting me know i have to get my playlists transferred asap.
Now its not a if or when i would leave Spotify, but how quickly i would leave spotify
 
Another one for folk to try which i have used plenty in the past and its worked fine :-
www.tunemymusic.com

Transfer Playlists Between Music Services | Tune My Music

Transfer Playlists From Any Music Platform to Any Other Music Platform! Including Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, YouTube, Google Play Music, TIDAL and more!
www.tunemymusic.com www.tunemymusic.com

I've pretty much always had a free Spotify account, bar the odd free deal, purely to access playlists as i think some are better than they are on Apple Music that i subscribe to. I would sometimes find ones that i like then transfer them over using the above website. It does in theory offer a function to track edits to the Spotify ones and update the Apple Music one for you automatically but it never worked very well for me and have now made it a subscription option but the basic transfer still works.
 
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As a user, I hate companies that will not allow you to transfer your data else where and I think this should be illegal.
 
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