Can brands use Spotify?

[robertpickstone]

Hi,

I am wondering if companies can create their own Spotify playlists, with track suggestions from staff and customers?

Is there any term or condition which prevents brands from being able to do this?

Thanks

Rob

[Peter__]

Hey! Welcome to the community 🙂 

There is information about branded playlists and other things over on the advertising section of the main website here which might interest you. All the contact details you need to get in touch with Spotify directly about this can be found on this page. 

Peter

[1182474124]

Hi

I've used the 'advertiser contact form' and tried all the other contact forms because I'm trying to find out what costs are involved in setting up a branded playlist.

I've made contact more than 3 times over the last two weeks with the same query and received no response, this is something that my company wants to set up immediately, I really someone to get back to me. 

[Joe]

Hi. I'll escalate this to the staff and hopefully someone will be in touch fairly quickly.

[1182474124]

Thank you Joe, really appreciate it. 

[AnnaWilson]

Hi guys, 

I have a similar question and it's not totally clear on the website. Would it be possible to share the outcome of this please? Or any advice you have?

Thanks, 

Anna 

[firecoachk]

My company really likes what Anthropologie does on its blog, in terms of sharing playlists:

http://blog.anthropologie.com/post/68470397434

http://blog.anthropologie.com/post/66725866931

http://blog.anthropologie.com/post/62445428334

http://blog.anthropologie.com/post/62337129132

Is Anthropologie paying some sort of royalty or subscription fee that enables them to do this? Is it a Brand Playlist? If so, why do Anthropologie's playlists generally contain 14-15 songs? Spotify's legal terms say "the Brand Playlists must consist of at least 20 songs."

My company would like to use Spotify on our blog -- we just don't want to get hit with a bill for thousands in royalties a few months or years down the road. I've submitted multiple requests via the "contact the partner team" and "contact Spotify support" pages, expressing our desire to do this the right way -- and our willingness to pay whatever we need to pay -- and have gotten zero response other than a form email that said to check for answers in the community.

Even on Spotify's Branded Playlists page, it tells you what a branded playlist is and what you need to provide to Spotify ... but it doesn't tell you how to get the ball rolling on that. Who do you contact? How much does it cost?

https://www.spotify.com/us/about-us/advertisers/ad-specs/branded-playlists/

Google "how brands should use Spotify" and you get 15 million results from marketing gurus about why Spotify is so great ... but virtually nothing about how brands can use Spotify legally, in such a way that we won't get sued. It's very frustrating. If someone could point me in the right direction, I'd sincerely appreciate it.

[Sam]

@firecoachk Hey! Those blog posts aren't officially branded. They're just playlists that have been posted with a picture added above (very nicely, I might add - looks really good).

Are you contacting the partners team here? If you'd rather PM me details, just do so here.

[firecoachk]

Hi -- Thanks so much for your response; I really appreciate it!

I totally agree that the playlists on Anthropologie's blogs are awesome. You're saying that my company (also a retail brand, much like Anthropologie) would also be free to create playlists and embed those playlists on our blog, with no need to create "brand playlists" or pay royalties or get approval from artists, etc.? If so, that is great news!

[Sam]

Of course, you're more than welcome to embed the Spotify Play Button wherever you'd like. It's totally free, we're totally for it.

To read more about it, just head here: https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/widgets/spotify-play-button/

If you have any other questions, just ask.

[firecoachk]

Awesome; thanks again!

[mbear622]

Hi-- piggybacking on the note re: Anthropologie's playlist, I'm wondering how to make a Spotify profile for a company rather than a person.  I work for a music publishing company and we'd love to make playlists featuring some of our writers/artists, but I don't want them to come from my personal account.  We have a company Facebook page... is there a way to link the two to a Spotify account?  Thanks!

[sethward]

Sam,

Just to be extra certain, are you saying there is absolutely nothing preventing a company from freely sharing a Spotify playlist on a commercial blog? And there is zero chance of legal action being taken by Spotify and/or the artists for using their work on a commercial site?

For instance, my company sells cruises and we have a cruise-related blog. We want to do an article where we share our top cruising playlist and we'd love to embed a Spotify playlist within the blog. Does it matter if the account used to create and share the playlist is a personal account? Is either one a violation of the terms? We obviously don't want to do anything illegal and risk paying any penalties or royalties.

Thanks

[Joe]

The thing is that a spotify playlist is just that. It doesn't contain any music, just a bunch of links to music in spotify's catalogue albeit nicely presented. To listen to the music, the end user will still need to have a spotify account and will be subject to he terms of his agreement with spotify.

[sethward]

So even though we're operating a commercial site, we are allowed to embed a Spotify playlist for free without acquiring individual rights to any of the music being used? This seems to be what most users are saying, but I'd love to hear someone from Spotify verify as much.

[Peter__ · Accepted solution]

Quickest way to get a response from Spotify support is normally to tweet @SpotifyCares 😉 

Since each user needs to have Spotify installed to play the content on their own account, I think you should be fine too. 

[sethward]

Peter, thanks for the tip. I tweeted @SpotifyCares yesterday and will hope for a response soon.

What concerns me is that Wired (UK) published an article about the embedded Spotify Play widget, and in it they said the following:

"However, brands are banned. The widgets are strictly for editorial and artist use. That stops brands from using an embedded playlist in a campaign when normally they'd need to make a separate deal with the rightsholders (known as a "sync" deal)."

Granted, this was from 2012, but still cause for concern.

I don't know if this board will let me post links, but here's the actual article: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-04/11/spotify-play-button

[Peter__]

Since play buttons are widgets, the full terms of usage are outlined here:

https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/widgets/terms-of-use/

Section IV 3e does mention commercial usage but I'm not sure to what extent. 

[sethward]

Section IV 3e states that "the Spotify Play Button may not be used for commercial purposes. This restriction does not prohibit you from embedding the Spotify Play Button on Websites that contain advertising."

As a branded BLOG, I'm not 100% sure where we fall. The blog is separate from our actual company site, and in a way is just a "Website that contains advertising" exclusively for our company site. There are also responses within this discussion stating that retail companies can use the Play Button on their blogs, and no one is posting otherwise.

The article that would feature the Spotify Play Button is editorial in nature, but of course the ultimate goal is to get people excited about our cruise-related content, and cruising in general, and hopefully book more cruises - so does this mean that it's ultimately a commercial purpose, and we're restricted from using the Play Button? To me, the immediate purpose is not commerical, although it's easy to argue the opposite, especially with a long term perspective.

The whole thing is so confusing. On one hand, Moderator Sam's telling users "Of course, you're more than welcome to embed the Spotify Play Button wherever you'd like. It's totally free, we're totally for it." And then Spotify's own terms and conditions make it sound like that's not actually the case.

It seems like the common response is that we should go ahead and use the Play Button because it sends more users to Spotify and it's in Spotify's best interest if we do - up until the record labels/artists raise the issue and Spotify changes how they interpret their terms and conditions. 

Anyways, hopefully I've outlined our intended use fairly well, so at this point I'm just looking for confirmation on whether or not we would be following Spotify's guidelines. I really appreciate all the responses thus far, and I don't mean to be rude or discount any of them, but it's kind of hard to tell who's stance would officially be backed by Spotify.

[Peter__]

I would suggest dropping the Spotify support guys an email using the online contact form and they will be able to give you a yes/no answer (which you then have in writing to save). 

If you get an automated email reply back directing you to the community or help pages, you need to reply directly to that email (even if its from no-reply) and one of the customer services agents will get back to you as soon as possible.