Spotify Is Burying Tracks From Musicians Who Give Exclusives To Apple and Tidal (bloomberg.com)

The music-streaming market is very competitive these days, especially since Apple released Apple Music last year. In retaliation for musicians giving Apple exclusive access to their new music, Spotify has reportedly been making their songs harder to find on its service. Bloomberg reports: "Artists who have given Apple exclusive access to new music have been told they won't be able to get their tracks on featuring playlists once the songs become available on Spotify, said the people [familiar with the strategy], who declined to be identified discussing the steps. Those artists have also found their songs buried in the search rankings of Spotify, the world's largest music-streaming service, the people said. Spotify said it doesn't alter search rankings. Spotify has been using such practices for about a year, one of the people said, though others said the efforts have escalated over the past few months. Artists who have given exclusives to Tidal, the streaming service run by Jay Z, have also retaliated against, the person said, declining to identify specific musicians."

Comments

Drake?

[PopeRatzo]

We're talking about Drake here. Show of hands: Who cares if Spotify doesn't include Drake in its promoted tracks? If people want to hear Drake (which in itself is a little unsettling), then they can still listen to his music on Spotify.

"Burying" is not the same as "not promoting". The music is there, but there isn't any incentive for Spotify to promote it.

Plus, it's Drake. I mean, come on...