What's up with music disappearing from Spotify

[rossva]

Plan

Premium

Country

UK

Device

iphone13 

Operating System

(iOS 15.3.1)

My Question or Issue

Hi Spotify community. Simply what's up with certain music just disappearing? For example - went to listen to 'Linger **bleep** Good' by Revolting Cocks a week or so ago - listened to it on Spotify like 100's of times before - and the whole album just isn't available anymore.

I know the reason is gonna be "licensing issues" but what does this actually mean? Spotify only buys the rights to stream each album for a certain amount of time then they lose the rights? in this case then, what's the trigger for renewing those rights? if it's an album not many people listen to, you won't renew the license etc?

 

[MauriceMV]

Hey @rossva,

Any content that is missing is normally down to the record label or rights holders withholding those tracks from Spotify, sometimes to push up physical and download sales but it could be a number of other things as well.

Most of the time the tracks will still be in your playlist if you added them,  but they're hidden because they are unplayable. Sometimes content is removed due to licensing changes (like you mentioned, though Spotify doesnt really 'buy' rights for a specific album) or it could be due to transfer of ownership or a request from the content owner.