Why is Spotify removing songs?

[itssarakang]

I'm genuinely curious as to why Spotify removes songs? For example, Lovesick by Mura Masa. It's one of my all time favorite songs so I'm heartbroken that they had removed it 😞 

[MattSuda]

Hey @itssarakang

The reason is that the artist or their music label has likely decided to remove it from Spotify.

The availability of music on Spotify is up to the artist and their music label.

Spotify wants all the world's music, and they're working hard on making this happen for you. However sometimes agreements can't be reached with the artist or label or a change may happen in music ownership. Sometimes the music is only available in certain countries, while access is blocked to others. Sometimes the album or song will be unavailable temporary, and come back again later.

The songs/albums will still be shown in your playlists so you can keep track of them. Make sure to go in settings and check for the setting that shows unavailable songs.

[WorldQuestioner]

I am not sure I should mention the artists and songs I love that were removed from Spotify. I still can't figure out why they were removed, and can't find answers on Google or Bing no matter how hard I search. They are mostly niche electronic songs. I will mention the songs if I know that's ok.

In fact, each one of the songs in question was removed from Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music on the same day. Why would that almost always be the case? Is removal on different platforms all connected?

[Sebasty]

Hey @WorldQuestioner 

Yes, when the artist or label/distributor changes something, it affects music on all streaming services, not just Spotify. So when Methlab label shut its doors, everything that was released under that label went down. Artists have slowly put their own releases back up. There's a lot of changes in the weather behind the streaming services, and usually it's not readily explained by anyone why some album disappeared. The labels and artists know what's up tho.

It's all quite complicated. Spotify and the likes are like a library, or a database where labels and distributors enter their data, and they also have the ability to remove that data.

Hopefully that explains things. The convenience of streaming service comes with its own thorns. : )

[WorldQuestioner]

Many songs that disappear from Spotify disappear without notice. I don't find any news or announcements on the web about the disappearance of the niche songs. This puzzle is disturbing.

[WorldQuestioner]

Why do songs vanish from Spotify's catalogue unannounced?