In 2013, Spotify revealed that it paid artists an average of $0.007 per stream. Spotify for Artists states that the company does not have a fixed per-play rate; instead, it considers factors such as the user’s home country and the individual artist’s royalty rate. Of that amount, about 58.5% of its total revenue goes to the owners of sound recording copyrights, and the other 12% goes to the owners of musical compositions.
In August 2024, District of Columbia U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google held a monopoly in online search and text advertising in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The lawsuit alleged that Google engaged in anticompetitive behavior by paying Apple between $8 billion and $12 billion to be the default search engine on iPhones. Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on October 20, 2020, asserting that it has illegally maintained its monopoly position in web search and search advertising.

Google around the globe

In January 2021, Spotify made a selection of audiobooks available on the platform as a test of developing a greater breadth of content for users. Spotify thereafter announced it was planning to add more of these pages and playlists to highlight songwriters. In February 2020, Spotify announced it would be featuring new songwriter pages and ‘written by’ playlists. In June 2017, Variety reported that Spotify would announce “Secret Genius”, a new initiative aimed at highlighting songwriters and producers, and the effect those people have on the music industry and the artists’ careers.

• While Waze would remain an independent entity, its social features, such as its crowdsourced location platform, were reportedly valuable integrations between Waze and Google Maps, Google’s own mapping service.
• Spotify thereafter announced it was planning to add more of these pages and playlists to highlight songwriters.
• In April, Spotify announced a discounted entertainment bundle with video-on-demand provider Hulu, which included discounted rates for university students.
• Some of Google’s services, such as Gmail, Google News, Orkut, and AdSense, originated from these independent endeavors.
• In November 2022, Henry Catalini Smith, a Spotify engineer in Malmö, set up the channel #kollektivavtal in the internal company Slack, which means “collective agreement” in Swedish.
• Technology news website Recode reported that the company was purchased for $400 million, yet the source of the information was not disclosed.
• He had been trying to find a CEO that Page and Brin would accept for several months, but they rejected several candidates because they wanted to retain control over the company.

Mobile listeners are now able to tap on any song or search for what they’d like to play. In September 2025, Spotify began removing restrictions preventing free users from listening to specific tracks. The company reported that the tier conditions may change before its full launch. On September 10, 2025, it was announced that Lossless would be rolling out to Premium listeners gradually to more than 50 markets through October. In February 2021, Spotify announced their plans to introduce a HiFi subscription, to offer listening in high fidelity, lossless sound quality. The changes faced a mixed reaction from the music industry, who believed that it would be detrimental to emerging musicians, but would make a larger share of total royalty payments available to musicians.

Circle, highlight or tap to search anything on your Android device.

Additionally, Apple stated that they have attempted to work with Spotify to integrate the service better with Apple’s products, such as Siri and Apple Watch. Two days later, Apple responded, stating that the claim was misleading rhetoric and that Spotify wanted benefits of a free app without being a free app. In a further escalation of the dispute with Apple, on 13 March 2019, Spotify filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission over unfair app store practices. Spotify released the first version of its Apple Watch app in November 2018, allowing playback control of the iPhone via the watch. Furthermore, he stated that “There is nothing in Apple’s conduct that ‘amounts to a violation of applicable antitrust laws.’ Far from it. … I would be happy to facilitate an expeditious review and approval of your app as soon as you provide us with something that is compliant with the App Store’s rules”.

European Union

In addition to its 100,000+ full-time employees, Google used about 121,000 temporary workers and contractors, as of March 2019.update In 2007, Google announced a free Internet service called TiSP, or Toilet Internet Service Provider, where one obtained a connection by flushing one end of a fiber-optic cable down their toilet. On March 15, 2016, Google announced the introduction of Google Analytics 360 Suite, “a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products, designed specifically for the needs of enterprise-class marketers” which can be integrated with BigQuery on the Google Cloud Platform.

Helpful products, built with you in mind

In 2021, a conspiracy theory began to take hold that Spotify was filling its playlists in some genres (including jazz, chill and “peaceful piano”) with stock music attributed to a handful of little-known musicians, mostly Swedish, in an effort to meet demand for background music. In 2024, Spotify Wrapped, which has become a key marketing strategy for the company, was criticised for appearing to rely on AI-generated content and producing uninteresting insights. He explained, “An extension of the internet radio craze of the early 2000s, Spotify would license content from record labels, and then felice bet support artists as people listened to their music.”
On 26 March 2019, Spotify announced they would acquire another podcast network, Parcast. On 6 February 2019, Spotify acquired the podcast networks Gimlet Media and Anchor FM Inc., with the goal of establishing themselves as a leading figure in podcasting. This was followed in May 2017 with the acquisition of artificial intelligence startup Niland, which uses technology to improve personalisation and recommendation features for users.
In response, Google threatened to close off access to its search engine in Australia. In January 2021, the Australian Government proposed legislation that would require Google and Facebook to pay media companies for the right to use their content. In 2021, the Alphabet Workers Union was founded, composed mostly of Google employees. Most employees were also working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the success of it even led to Google announcing that they would be permanently converting some of their jobs to work from home Such measures included slowing down hiring for the remainder of 2020, except for a small number of strategic areas, recalibrating the focus and pace of investments in areas like data centers and machines, and non-business essential marketing and travel.

• Page and Brin had first approached Shriram, who was a venture capitalist, for funding and counsel, and Shriram invested $250,000 in Google in February 1998.
• Spotify provides access to over 100 million songs, 5 million podcasts, and 4 billion playlists.
• In March 2013, the five-play individual track limit was removed for users in the United Kingdom, and media reports stated that users in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand never had the limit in the first place.
• The corporation exercised this authorization in September 2013 when it announced it would purchase all the electricity produced by the not-yet-built 240-megawatt Happy Hereford wind farm.
• Spotify had added social media-related features to its platform, especially to compete for ad revenue and to increase its media-related users.

In December 2015, Spotify debuted Spotify Wrapped, a program that creates playlists based on each user’s most listened-to songs from the year. The features were announced by CEO Daniel Ek at a press conference, with Ek saying that a common user complaint about the service was that “Spotify is great when you know what music you want to listen to, but not when you don’t”. “Follow” lets users follow artists and friends to see what they are listening to, while “Discover” directs users to new releases as well as music, review, and concert recommendations based on listening history.

Get the details on how Search works — from the approach we take, to the technology behind it.

However, artists such as Gary Glitter and Lostprophets are still hidden from Spotify’s radio stations. In May 2018, Spotify attracted criticism for its “Hate Content & Hateful Conduct policy” that removed the music of R. A study has shown that record labels keep a high amount of the money earned from Spotify, and the CEO of Merlin Network, a representative body for over 10,000 independent labels, has also observed significant yearly growth rates in earnings from Spotify, while clarifying that Spotify pays labels, not artists. The free service tier has led to a variety of major album releases being delayed or withdrawn from the service. Worldwide, 30,000 musicians have joined the organization UnionOfMusicians (UMAW).
In March 2017, Spotify announced a partnership with the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference for 2017, presenting specific content in special playlists through an SXSW hub in Spotify’s apps. Spotify stated that Sonalytic would be used to improve the company’s personalized playlists, better match songs with compositions, and improve the company’s publishing data system. In a comment to TechCrunch, Spotify said that Seed Scientific’s team would lead an advanced analytics unit within the company, focused on developing data services. In June 2015, Spotify announced they had acquired Seed Scientific, a data science consulting firm and analytics company.

On 14 November 2018, the company announced 13 new markets in the MENA region, including the creation of a new Arabic hub and several playlists. While certain musicians laud the service for offering a lawful option to combat piracy and for remunerating artists each time their music is played, others have voiced objections to Spotify’s royalty structure and its effect on record sales. Israel expressed apprehension that the data transferred to the cloud services of these global corporations might be accessible to foreign law enforcement agencies. This includes sales of apps, purchases made in-app, digital content products on Google and YouTube, Android and licensing and service fees, including fees received for Google Cloud offerings. In doing so, if users chose to listen to one set of these artists’ music, it effectively reduced the number of plays for other musicians.
When you sign in to your Google Account, all the Google services you use work together to help you get more done. No matter which device or Google service you’re using, your account gives you a consistent experience you can customize and manage at any time. Sign in to your Google Account, and get the most out of all the Google services you use. In April 2018, thousands of Google employees, including senior engineers, signed a letter urging Google CEO Sundar Pichai to end this controversial contract with the Pentagon. Google has been criticized for continuing to collect location data from users who had turned off location-sharing settings. The lawsuit claims Google collected data from users who had specifically opted out of tracking.
In March 2013, the five-play individual track limit was removed for users in the United Kingdom, and media reports stated that users in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand never had the limit in the first place. In April 2025, Spotify expanded its AI Playlist beta feature to Premium listeners in over 40 new English-speaking markets, including countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean. All other streams of selected songs outside of Spotify Radio and Autoplay remain commission-free. In November 2021, Spotify launched the City and Local Pulse charts, aimed at representing the songs listened to in major cities around the world. The feature is represented by a bell icon on the app’s main page and is available on iOS and Android.
In January 2015, Sony announced PlayStation Music, a new music service with Spotify as its exclusive partner. In December 2021, Spotify acquired Whooshkaa, a podcast tech company that develops specialized technology that allows radio broadcasters to easily turn their existing audio content into on-demand podcast programming. In November 2021, Spotify acquired audiobook company Findaway, including its publishing imprint OrangeSky Audio. On 3 July 2020, cybersecurity firm VPNMentor discovered a database containing 380 million individual records, including the logins and passwords of Spotify users. Ek’s initial pitch to Lorentzon was not initially related to music, but rather a way for streaming content such as video, digital films, images or music to drive advertising revenue.
The testing was very limited in nature and was only available on Spotify’s Android app in the US. Some artists included in this initial test phase were Steve Aoki and the Wombats. In May 2022, Spotify began testing a feature that would allow select artists to promote their NFTs via their profiles. In September 2020, Spotify, Epic, and other companies founded The Coalition for App Fairness, which aims for better conditions for the inclusion of apps in app stores. In 2019, under iOS 13, it became possible to play Spotify music using Siri commands.