I have subscribed to Spotify for years. So many years, I couldn’t tell you how long I’ve subscribed to them. It’s been longer than 10 years, but I shredded any credit card statements prior to the 10 years. Though now, they have made changes to their audiobook Terms of Use for new audiobooks published to the platform, and I am saying good-bye Spotify.
Before we get too far into this, I should state the fact, I am not a layer. Now for the fun in the new Terms of Use which reads:
“You retain ownership of your User Content when you post it to the Service. However, in order for us to make your User Content available on the Spotify Service, we do need a limited license from you to that User Content. Accordingly, you hereby grant to Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium, whether alone or in combination with other Content or materials, in any manner and by any means, method or technology, whether now known or hereafter created, in connection with the Spotify Service. Where applicable and to the extent permitted under applicable law, you also agree to waive, and not to enforce, any “moral rights” or equivalent rights, such as your right to be identified as the author of any User Content, including Feedback, and your right to object to derogatory treatment of such User Content.”
https://publishdrive.com/recent-changes-in-spotify-findaway-voices-terms-of-use.html
These changes are stripping away rights for authors to make additional money under broadly named circumstances. They can modify the story, they can recreate the story, they can use your book and characters in whatever they like, without paying you, the author, another penny. As a future hopeful author, I am leaving Spotify until they change their Terms of Use.
Usually, an author gets to decide and negotiate a contract for their work to be translated. Not if they upload their audiobook to Spotify. Now, in the Terms of Use Spotify can decide to translate the book. Spotify sees your work doing well, and they decide it would do well in say the French market; Spotify can translate it, and offer it to listeners who want to listen in French without paying you for the additional streams or purchases of your work.
The characters who have lived rent-free in your head, refusing to leave you alone, who you’ve gotten to know over the years of writing their story or stories may now be taken by Spotify and put in some other work or some other format. You won’t be paid.
I have not really used Spotify for audiobooks yet, but had been watching a few to see if there would be a sale or something because audiobooks are expensive. Sometime in 2023, they added 15 hours of audiobook time to the monthly subscription. I could just not listen to another book, but money talks. And I don’t want my money going to a company that is trying to rip off people.
Audiobooks, I am continuing with Google Books. I’ve been meaning to try Nook Books, even already have an audiobook purchased I just haven’t gotten around to listening to it yet. #Readerproblems. Nook even has a somewhat similar subscription service for audiobooks as Audible. If you so choose, $14.99 (USD) a month gives you one credit for an audiobook. Each book is one credit. Also, I recently found Kobo Books offers audiobooks through their platform with a similar subscription model to Audible. What do you use for audiobooks?
Instead of using Spotify for music, I am now trying out YouTube Music. They have all the songs from my playlists on Spotify, which I have now had the painstaking pleasure of finding each of those songs to recreate them on YouTube Music. YouTube Music also has the Podcasts I listen to. I just need to figure out where I left off on some of them. I haven’t tried playing the playlists in the car yet, but I’m curious to see if they will play better than Spotify. Spotify, when it would reach certain songs, they wouldn’t play. Didn’t matter if I had downloaded the playlist or not. Those songs just wouldn’t play. I don’t know if that had to do with whatever agreement was made with the publisher of those songs or just poor quality.