mjmooney Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 3 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said: No, however you won't be able to listen to your music offline (so it will drain your data and have issues associated with poor connection (buffering etc)) and you'll have to put up with ads. What would the data drain be doing, though? If the music is downloaded, it's physically on my phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 (edited) 16 minutes ago, mjmooney said: What would the data drain be doing, though? If the music is downloaded, it's physically on my phone. Could be wrong here but here's my interpretation of Spotify, someone correct me if I'm wrong... My understanding is that the songs are DRM (Digital Rights Management) locked. Once you transition from premium to regular you will be unable to listen offline. This means you will only be able to stream songs with adverts and skip-limitations, since you are streaming the songs and having adverts interrupting your playlists this requires data. When you 'download' music on Spotify you can only access it through it's environment, it's not a download in a conventional sense, you are not storing .mp3, .mp3 or .wav etc file formats in any physical location on your device, you are effectively accessing a cached stream. There are things out there called 'Spotify downloaders' which will convert your songs to mp3 formats for storage and access outside of Spotify but these aren't apart of the Spotify service itself. Edited April 23, 2019 by Dr_Pangloss Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 22 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said: Could be wrong here but here's my interpretation of Spotify, someone correct me if I'm wrong... My understanding is that the songs are DRM (Digital Rights Management) locked. Once you transition from premium to regular you will be unable to listen offline. This means you will only be able to stream songs with adverts and skip-limitations, since you are streaming the songs and having adverts interrupting your playlists this requires data. When you 'download' music on Spotify you can only access it through it's environment, it's not a download in a conventional sense, you are not storing .mp3, .mp3 or .wav etc file formats in any physical location on your device, you are effectively accessing a cached stream. That can't be right. That would suggest that 'downloads' are just streaming by another name. But if I'm offline, I'd have to stream via phone data, and I don't see how that is possible without being charged. And what if I have no phone signal? Besides which, my Spotify settings actually allow me to specify where I want to store music - phone memory or SD card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stevo985 Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 1 minute ago, mjmooney said: That can't be right. That would suggest that 'downloads' are just streaming by another name. But if I'm offline, I'd have to stream via phone data, and I don't see how that is possible without being charged. And what if I have no phone signal? Besides which, my Spotify settings actually allow me to specify where I want to store music - phone memory or SD card. I don't know if he's right about the not being able to listen offline with the free version (I've never tried) But he's definitely right in that you don't actually store a proper music file. The song is on your phone, you can listen offline. But it won't show up in your phone's storage as Heyjude.mp3 or similar. It's the same with Netflix downloads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenjiOgiwara Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 The songs are on your phone's storage iirc. They are hidden under the Spotify app, so you won't find them with a usual file explorer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 58 minutes ago, mjmooney said: That can't be right. That would suggest that 'downloads' are just streaming by another name. But if I'm offline, I'd have to stream via phone data, and I don't see how that is possible without being charged. And what if I have no phone signal? Besides which, my Spotify settings actually allow me to specify where I want to store music - phone memory or SD card. Perhaps I'm a bit off but it's quite obvious you're not downloading the files as you would a standard MP3, the 'downloads' are going to be subject to DRM and hence encrypted and time/ service bound, it's Spotify after all, not Napster. So it all sits in the Spotify client on your device. Again my understanding is that you won't have the offline feature if you're not a premium subscriber, it's one of the main features of the premium service. I'll happily defer to people with better technical knowledge but the 'caching' in this circumstance should not necessarily require you to be online just by definition, but that said, I'm not an app developer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr_Pangloss Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 1 hour ago, KenjiOgiwara said: The songs are on your phone's storage iirc. They are hidden under the Spotify app, so you won't find them with a usual file explorer. That's not the point Stevo is making. Obviously they're stored but it's all within the Spotify client, the music is not stored as a 'standard' file. Again it's all about DRM locks. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 2 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said: That's not the point Stevo is making. Obviously they're stored but it's all within the Spotify client, the music is not stored as a 'standard' file. Again it's all about DRM locks. Yeah, I assume they are stored locally, but only playable by the Spotify app. The question is what happens if you revert back from paid to free. You can't download any more, but can you still play the ones in your phone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KenjiOgiwara Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 Ah sorry. I am normally useless at this stuff and thought I had the answer for once. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 23, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted April 23, 2019 2 hours ago, mjmooney said: Yeah, I assume they are stored locally, but only playable by the Spotify app. The question is what happens if you revert back from paid to free. You can't download any more, but can you still play the ones in your phone? The download is only in effect a play while not connected to the internet option. This option is removed once you revert back to free. They may well still be still stored within spotify in case you return to the paid version but until you do they will just be filling up your device with data that can't be accessed Essentially they are only "yours" whilst you keep the subscription up 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xela Posted April 23, 2019 Share Posted April 23, 2019 (edited) 5 hours ago, mjmooney said: So, if I ever revert to the free version, all my downloaded music becomes unplayable? I have 20 playlists on Spotify, but only 2 are 'downloaded' for offline usage (only have 16GB phone storage). With a valid phone signal, all 20 playlists can be played. If I click on airplane mode, 18 of them grey out and the 2 downloaded ones are still available to listen to. Once you end premium then you lose that offline play option. I've had Premium since invite days and love it. Edited April 23, 2019 by Xela Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 23, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 23, 2019 1 hour ago, bickster said: The download is only in effect a play while not connected to the internet option. This option is removed once you revert back to free. They may well still be still stored within spotify in case you return to the paid version but until you do they will just be filling up your device with data that can't be accessed Essentially they are only "yours" whilst you keep the subscription up OK, thanks, I have my answer. The next question then, is: if they are taking up space in the phone, and become unplayable due to a cancelled subscription, can they be deleted to free up space? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 23, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted April 23, 2019 Just now, mjmooney said: OK, thanks, I have my answer. The next question then, is: if they are taking up space in the phone, and become unplayable due to a cancelled subscription, can they be deleted to free up space? I suspect if you delete the app then redownload it to use the free version they will be gone. I say this based on my saved songs disappearing when I did that (and that is without removing the subscription, which I've never done) and also I have different saved songs on different devices. When you redownload the app it's pretty much a clean install 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted April 24, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted April 24, 2019 Has anybody else got a new auto playlist called your daily drive? or am I being experimented on? It's a mixture of tracks I play and similar (so some are suggestions) and a few short newsy podcasts of the current news. It plays 3 or 4 tracks then a podcast. After about 4 podcasts, its just music from that point on. I quite like it, the mix is more varied than the single daily mixes and the podcasts break up the music a bit. Thumbs up from me https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1EfX9TTIXwdW5v?si=sa0E1TfhRSWpNwFWWYwRXQ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjmooney Posted April 27, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 27, 2019 Well, having forked out the tenner a month for Spotify premium, I have to say I'm quite impressed. I still prefer to own CDs for my real favourite stuff, but this is good for music that I like, but not quite enough to buy. Also rarities and odd tracks. And experimenting with new stuff. Given that I have plenty of space on my phone's SD card, and that I listen to music more in the car and the kitchen (both of which have bluetooth facilities) than anywhere else, it's great. In the first few days I've downloaded about 200 albums and several playlists, so I can see why it's a concern for musicians' livelihoods. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted April 27, 2019 VT Supporter Share Posted April 27, 2019 2 minutes ago, mjmooney said: Well, having forked out the tenner a month for Spotify premium, I have to say I'm quite impressed. I still prefer to own CDs for my real favourite stuff, but this is good for music that I like, but not quite enough to buy. Also rarities and odd tracks. And experimenting with new stuff. Given that I have plenty of space on my phone's SD card, and that I listen to music more in the car and the kitchen (both of which have bluetooth facilities) than anywhere else, it's great. In the first few days I've downloaded about 200 albums and several playlists, so I can see why it's a concern for musicians' livelihoods. If you have family members/friends who use Spotify you can get a family pack. 5 accounts for £15 a month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted April 27, 2019 Share Posted April 27, 2019 I agree Mike, I prefer CDs and continue to buy them but Spotify allows me to try before I buy and experiment. (who am I kidding, experiment, its bloody country). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted April 27, 2019 Share Posted April 27, 2019 51 minutes ago, mjmooney said: so I can see why it's a concern for musicians' livelihoods. I'm a sample of one, but while I still don't buy many CDs (and I never have, really), I buy tickets + tshirts for far, far more bands due finding them on Spotify than I would have beforehand. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 Tool relent to streaming. Their catalogue to be hosted by the usual suspects. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted August 2, 2019 Author Moderator Share Posted August 2, 2019 3 hours ago, Xann said: Tool relent to streaming. Their catalogue to be hosted by the usual suspects. When is this happening, just so I can block them ever turning up in my playlists 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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