Music website to halve free content

SPOTIFY is to halve the amount of free music available to its listeners.

Those who use its free service, which includes adverts broadcast between the songs, will be limited to ten hours of music per month – while each individual track will be limited to five plays.

Fans have accused the online music provider of aiming to switch its offering from free to pay-for, however, the company have denied the claims.

"Our chief priority is to keep the free service, which is what has made Spotify so popular," said Ken Parks, the company's chief content officer.

"We're a company whose ambition is to offer all the world's music to everyone which means growing the business and our user base to many times its current size."

He added: "Everything we do is designed to ensure our users continue to have access to an amazing free experience."

New users will get six months of free content before the changes kick in, while existing listeners will come under the new regulations from next month.

The majority of its 6.67m listeners use the free service, which is subsidised by adverts.

Announcing the new plans in its blog, the firm claimed that the changes – which begin on 1 May 1 – would mainly affect heavier users.

Writing on its blog, the company added: "Most of you use Spotify to discover music – on average over 50 new tracks per month, even after a year. For those of you using Spotify to find new tracks to enjoy and share with friends, these changes shouldn't get in the way of you doing that."