import of Spotify play list.

[Hugh Noble]

I am spending a frustrating evening trying to incorporate a short Spotify playlist into a B2 playlist. I have a premium account and have been using a Win 10 laptop. My thanks in anticipation of the usual good suggestions.

[JFBUK]

Hi 

Are you sure this is possible ?

I can’t see it listed in the documentation.

John

[Mark Fishman]

Doesn't Spotify Premium require you to log in with a username and password? The B2 has no way to do that.

[lesli...@hotmail.com]

Yes, in answer to Mark's question, Spotify Premium can only be accessed using a user name and password. I stream my Spotify music through my B2 via the Bluetooth connection from my phone. I can't transfer any of my Spotify downloads to my B2, and Spotify wouldn't allow it. It isn't great, tbh, as you have to turn the B2 volume up significantly, and it doesn't display the artist, album or track on the B2 either (have to see that through Spotify on the phone). But at least I can play it through my speakers. Leslie

[JFBUK]

It is the Librespot software on the B2 that enables another device to see the B2 as a ‘Spotify Connect’ playback device.

The current Librespot implementation only supports Spotify premium accounts. In recent months  Spotify have released an SDK to allow Spotify free accounts to use Spotify Connect.

It is up to the individual device manufacturers as to whether they have updated their software/firmware to enable this.

I know that Yamaha have because I playback using  my Spotify free account from my phone or PC to my Yamaha receiver and thus to my main speakers.

John

[John Alexander]

When it comes to Spotify on my B2 I use a program called Sidify (https://sidify.com) to create 320kps MP3 files on my laptop which I then load onto the B3. It works well, but only in real time so a large playlist can take a while. 

[lesli...@hotmail.com]

Hi John,

I hadn't heard of Sidify, so that's very interesting and potentially helpful. That could make a significant difference to how I access and play my Spotify content. How does it work in relation to Spotify's business model? If I use Sidify and take content from my Spotify premium library across to my Brennan, do I still 'own' the content if I subsequently terminate my Spotify account? The artist won't get any benefit from this. At present if I really like a Spotify download I go out and buy the product. Using Sidify I wouldn't need to. Or am I missing a point here?

Leslie

[Mark Fishman]

The streaming business model -- from the artist's POV -- is that a tiny royalty is paid *per streaming instance*, i.e., if a track is streamed once, the royalty amount is paid once, if it's streamed twice, the royalty is paid twice, etc.. Prseumably Spotify Premium -- which allows you to capture a playlist so that it can be played offline, but does NOT allow you to transfer that content to another device -- has some way of keeping track of how many times you've listened to offline content, so they can adhere to the required royalty structure. (I say "presumably" because I haven't heard of any major lawsuits alleging that artists are being cheated out of royalties by streaming services that allow offline listening.)

If you capture the streamed content in a way that allows you to listen to it outside of the Spotify app (including transferring it to another device), so it's neither streamed nor counted, subsequent royalties aren't paid because the content isn't being streamed repeatedly. It doesn't matter if you keep your account active: if you don't stream, the artist doesn't get any payment.

Your method, of buying the stuff you really like, is much more ethical, and in the long run better for everyone, including you.

As far as I can tell from the Spotify license agreement, you don't "own" streaming or offline content: copying the content out of the app and keeping it is probably a violation of the agreement, even if your account is still active, and certainly if you close the account.

Sidify, like many other computer applications that claim to circumvent DRM, is almost certainly just capturing the streamed music as it plays, and then re-encoding it to whatever format you've chosen. The marketing claims of "lossless conversion" on their website are what I call weasel-speak. If you can play it, you can capture it -- that doesn't make it lossless.

Cheers -- The Grinch :)

[lesli...@hotmail.com]

Hi Mark,

Thanks very much for that explanation. I thought so.  I do worry about how musicians make money out of the digital environment, especially with the minimal streaming royalty payment and the circumvention by third party software audio manipulators. Complicated issues of cost, scale, reach, return and legality here. 

I am also buying digital copies of albums from the artist or their small independent collectives in some cases where they don't make a CD, which is less than retail price (£5 -£8 rather than £12-£15), and more than streaming. I don't have the physical product, which I do value as an album then a CD buyer from way back, but the artist is getting a better return, even though not from such a vast potential audience as these mega-distribution channels.

Having said that (and owning up time) I did expand my music collection by borrowing CDs at a rental fee from music libraries, and then ripping them. I don't do that anymore as music libraries have largely disappeared, and those that are still functioning are no longer accessible. I used music libraries and now use Spotify to sample and then go and buy. Probably more ethical than my previous habit. Life used to be a lot simpler (although surprisingly similar in a pre-tech age!) when I browsed the racks at my independent record retailer, and checked out the album in the listening booth before parting with my 39s/6d old UK currency (if my memory of the late sixties is accurate, which I somehow doubt!)...but my hoarding of vinyl is now very much a thing of the past.... hence the investment in Brennan to manage my digital and CD owned music collection.

I'll think carefully before using anything like Sidify, but it helps to know what the options and issues are.

Thanks

Leslie