[jzzskijj]

> It surprises me how much of my Spotify library is no longer available. There’s at least a few dozen songs in my Spotify library that have been taken off the platform. It shows up in the list greyed out. A lot of good songs too.

This probably has more to do with publishers and licensing contracts than artists pulling their music off from platforms. Sometimes even bigger artists' albums disappear when publisher is sold or goes out from the business. Or the licensing contract's period runs out. As sad it is, many artists don't own the rights to their music, and if the rights owner is defunct, then there are missing albums or even discographies.

[jillesvangurp]

A lot of that is also bad meta data. I have a few playlists for around 10 years or so. Every so often I have to go in and hunt down greyed out tracks that are no longer there but are available in identical versions elsewhere. Publishers apparently regularly update what they have on the platform and there's a lot of duplication as well between best off albums, remastered albums, etc. And some artists, like Neil Young, actually pulled most of their content. Spotify seems very happy to just break everybody's playlists continuously.

[Macha]

These disappearing tracks are the reason I moved back to managing my own music collection.

I do have YouTube Music for listening to stuff I don't own yet, but primarily I use Jellyfin these days for music.

[pydry]

>Spotify seems very happy to just break everybody's playlists continuously.

This is an artefact of the industry and not something they have much control over. Labels for larger artists just don't just sell global streaming rights in perpetuity. They will carve it up by region and time in order to try and maximize profit.

[geraldhh]

> Spotify seems very happy to just break everybody's playlists continuously.

definitely possible to avoid this, but given it would be a follow-up cost from the failing core business, it probably could not be done. hell, they didn't even get around to making basic meta-data reliably present.

[nmeagent]

> Spotify seems very happy to just break everybody's playlists continuously.

I remember this being particularly infuriating with movie soundtracks or other compilations, where individual tracks would often evaporate one day for bogus (licensing) reasons.

> And some artists, like Neil Young, actually pulled most of their content.

Yeah, I actually left Spotify with Neil. Apparently though he and other artists like Joni Mitchell that left at the time are now back on the service as of a few weeks ago.

[snailmailman]

It’s infuriating.

Spotify for instance had some Spotify exclusive “DJ mixes” that were all an hour of well-mixed playlists. Spotify got artists to curate them and would have “XYZ’s DJ Mix”. They were perfect for seamless music listening at the gym. No breaks between songs. Non stop music. I listened to them all the time.

But one day a few months ago they all just vanished. Every one. I had added several to my Spotify library. For a bit they were playlists of grayed out songs. And then the playlists themselves vanished too. This content was all Spotify exclusive- the music is just gone now. It’s not available elsewhere.

It was all “mixed” versions of songs with smooth transitions in an out. Luckily I had added most of the original songs to other Spotify playlists that I had. But still, the mixes themselves are gone.

[input_sh]

You should know: Apple Music filled that niche to perfection. Hands down, better than it ever was on Spotify. More choices, easier discovery, more collaboration with external brands, etc.

https://music.apple.com/us/curator/apple-music-dj-mixes/1441...

[snailmailman]

Interesting! I’ll definitely take a look. I’ve been meaning to try Apple Music.

[jonathantf2]

It's the reason I use both. Spotify's recommendations and social features are much better than Apple's - but the exclusive DJ sets and recordings of concerts etc are a great value add.

[WickyNilliams]

Not sure what genre you listen to, but soundcloud and mixcloud are the place to go for high quality mixes imo. That's where the DJs post. It's not immune to takedowns and tracks disappearing. But I have a playlists of hundreds of mixes curated over years and they're all still there. Many even with an option to download if you so wish

[znpy]

Frankly, this is why I always ignored Spotify and other streaming services and keep a jolly roger above my head.

If you had pirated or ripped those mixes off Spotify, you'd still have them. And you probably paid enough months of subscription to feel okay with that.

Because in the end https://xkcd.com/488/

[dieselgate]

Thanks for the comic link and enjoy the riff off the book title “steal this book”.

Just looked into deleting my Spotify account through the app and appears that’s not an (obvious?) option. Ugh

[lotsofpulp]

The comic does not make sense for iTunes, since if you buy music from Apple, you get the non DRM file that is yours to use however you want.

[xerox13ster]

It’s xkcd number 488, it was probably made when iTunes was still selling or just after it stopped selling DRM music.

[lotsofpulp]

Good point, the comic was published Oct 2008 according to xkcd and Apple stopped selling DRM music in Jan 2009.