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Spotify Starts Cracking Down on Friends Who Share Family Plans (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the crack-down dept.

Spotify is emailing some users on family plans asking for their GPS locations in order to confirm that they live in the same location. From a report: Subscribers who don't confirm their home address could lose access to their plan, according to the email. The move is an apparent attempt by Spotify to crack down on groups of friends who save money on individual subscriptions by sharing discounted plans intended for families. The emails, which have been sent to a limited number of "Premium for Family" subscribers in at least the US and Germany, have been received with scorn by some who rightly point out that not all families live together. However, Spotify's small print does say that the family plan is available for "you and up to five people who reside at your same address." The amount of people subscribed to family plans suggests not all of them abide by Spotify's definition.

4 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Families who stay together... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But Spotify makes it very clear when you sign up what constitutes a family within the confines of their subscription model. The social construct of "family" isn't important. Just because you think your second cousin Kuala Lumpur should be able to share your plan doesn't make it so.

    PS. Do you use that kind of language around your famliy? No wonder they don't want to live with you...

  2. Let's annoy our customers! by darth_borehd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We are hemorrhaging cash. What should we do?

    Let's annoy our customers by taking away the lyrics feature!
    -- Good one! What else?

    Let's start requiring home addresses so we can sell their info to marketers.
    -- Great! This is going to make people love us. We'll tell them we are going all Draconians on all family members have to have the same addresses. Screw their parents in the military and kids in college.

    1. Re:Let's annoy our customers! by farble1670 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Let's annoy our customers by taking away the lyrics feature!
      -- Good one! What else?

      I'm sure that saved them MILLIONS.

      Let's start requiring home addresses so we can sell their info to marketers.
      -- Great! This is going to make people love us. We'll tell them we are going all Draconians on all family members have to have the same addresses. Screw their parents in the military and kids in college.

      Won't someone think of the children and our honored veterans?

      We all know this isn't about taking away little Suzy's music while she's off at university in the next state over. It's about some people that are sharing their account with tens of their friends. If you like Pandora, you'd agree they need some way to fight this. If you don't like or use Pandora, then why are you here crying?

  3. Re:Simple solution ... by rogoshen1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Man.. have not looked at their financials but i'd wager the bandwidth and overall 'tech' costs are a complete joke compared the licensing fees they get whacked with by the RIAA and their ilk.