In a move that many see as long overdue, Spotify has effectively shut down pay-for-playlist slot site SpotLister. But more than a dozen similar pay for play services continue to operate.
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Spotify disconnected SpotLister from its API last week, effectively shutting down the pay-for-playlist add marketplace. SpotLister offered users the ability to buy onto more than 1500 Spotify playlists with more than 11.5 million collective followers.
Pay for play or payola is explicitly forbidden on Spotify. Its terms of service prohibit the “selling a user account or playlist, or otherwise accepting any compensation, financial or otherwise, to influence the name of an account or playlist or the content included on an account or playlist.”
Until recently, however, the music streamer has taken little concrete action against offenders.
In fact, rather than a terms of service violation, SpotLister appears to have run afoul of Spotify by using its Next Big Sound song matching API to help pair tracks with the right playlists.
In recent days, Spotlister, even tried to rebrand as Jamlister, but to no avail. “Despite all of our efforts to rebrand and comply with their requests, our API key has been deactivated so we will no longer be able to operate on our platform,” the company wrote in a post offering refunds.
Playlisters Go Unpunished
Spotify may be trying to clean up its act prior to next month’s public stock offering. But more than a dozen SpotLister competitors are still operating without using the API. And to date, no playlister has come forward saying that they’ve been kicked off of Spotify for receiving payments to add a track.
– H/T to Daily Dot who originally broke the story.