Last year, Spotify launched a new feature to allow independent artists to upload music directly to the platform. Now, the company has decided to shut down the beta program.
At the end this month, the streaming service will stop accepting new uploads through Spotify for Artists. In a new release, it outlines how users can migrate their music to other distributors over the next month, to avoid any gaps and keep play counts intact. As it turns out, this is a mandatory step to ensure that your music isn’t completely absent from the platform.
So shit you put on Spotify through Spotify will be removed so you have to put your shit back on Spotify but not through Spotify
— BrohanXoXo (@BrohanXoXo) July 1, 2019
The platform hopes to make the transition as simple as possible for artists. The platform’s preferred artist distributors include CD Baby, Distrokid and EmuBands. More details on how to distribute music here. Also, see FAQs.
They further explain the changes in a statement:
The most impactful way we can improve the experience delivering music to Spotify for as many artists and labels as possible is to lean into the great work our distribution partners are already doing to serve the artist community. Over the past year, we’ve vastly improved our work with distribution partners to ensure metadata quality, protect artists from infringement, provide their users with instant access to Spotify for Artists, and more.
Artists will need to lock in distribution by July 30th for undisturbed service.
Read the 30-day notice sent out to artists below. So far, most people responding are taking this as a negative experience and a major wall toward sharing their music.
This is 100% the absolute most underhanded, fucked up shit to do to your artists @Spotify
Fuck pic.twitter.com/iSn8YhJsHb
— GHOST DATA (@GHOSTDATA_) July 1, 2019