Spotify May Limit Access To Free Music To Get People To Upgrade To Pay Version

Spotify is probably best known here in the US as the music streaming service that hasn't launched. There are hoards of US music fans waiting for Spotify to hit the country, but so far, that hasn't happened. Over in Europe Spotify is very popular and has a hoard of free users and a million paid subscribers. The service has 10 million total users in Europe.

Sources close to the company are telling CNET that Spotify is set to limit the amount of time users can listen to music on its free service. Apparently, the company is set to place limits on the total number of hours that users could listen to free music. The source also says that Spotify might put a cap on the number of times that the user can stream a specific song.

The goal is to get the user to upgrade to the paid account where they can get unlimited access to the music. CNET also notes that Spotify has agreements in the US with two of the major labels and has already agreed to limit the amount of time that a user can listen to music free before making them upgrade to pay versions. The changes could happen this week, however, May is the more likely date for the changes to go into effect.

[via CNET]