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Can you point to the part of the Spotify ToC, where you agree not to block ads? I haven't been able to find anything about it.

jsgo 8y ago
You agree that they can serve them to you. Blocking them kind of stops that, yeah? 8 Rights you grant us In consideration for the rights granted to you under the Agreements, you grant us the right (1) to allow the Spotify Service to use the processor, bandwidth, and storage hardware on your Device in order to facilitate the operation of the Service, (2) to provide advertising and other information to you, and (3) to allow our business partners to do the same. In any part of the Spotify Service, the Content you access, including its selection and placement, may be influenced by commercial considerations, including Spotify’s agreements with third parties. Some Content licensed by, provided to, created by or otherwise made available by Spotify (e.g. podcasts) may contain advertising as part of the Content. The Spotify Service makes such Content available to you unmodified.
- hanspeter 8y ago
  Granting Spotify rights means that the user allow them to show them ads. It's in there to protect Spotify. A user agrees not to sue them, if Spotify put ads on their phone. It has nothing to do with whatever the user does to avoid being exposed to those ads.
  - jsgo 8y ago
    That’s a very interesting take. What prior legal action justifies it? This seems more akin to cable services here. For all intents and purposes, all of the channels they provide are served to the home, but they then restrict based off the package you’re paying for. In Spotify’s case instead of restricting (unless they have premium only channels/content), they’re adding advertisements. To block the ads is analogous to using a method to remove the restriction on channels you can access, and the typical remedy is to terminate the service to that customer and/or seeking civil remedies.
    - hanspeter 8y ago
      I don't know if that's an interesting take. That's what it means. I'm unaware if there's any prior legal actions but terms are written not only for any prior legal actions but also for any possible legal actions. An analogy to cable services would be if you had something installed on your TV that automatically switched channel or put on a cat youtube video, when the commercials are on on and switched back when the commercials were done. Your example would be an analogy to having a script on Spotify which gave you access to some premium music library that only paying customers should have access to.
      - jsgo 8y ago
        Okay, how about this: it’d be like granting an entity (Spotify) the ability to put signs (advertisements) in your yard (browser window), and then when they go to do so, you prevent them from entering your yard (browser window). If it isn’t against the agreement directly, it certainly is against the spirit of it. And that holds a lot of weight. Because what is the point of being able to show you advertisements if you’re going to block them from even rendering? I get it. I don’t like ads either. Well, I’m generally fine if they make some degree of sense (none of the odd ones where it has a picture of an onion partially covered by a sock or something) or don’t hijack the browser (massive redirect that eats back history and presents me with some “congratulations, click here” thing). But if I don’t like the ads, I’m free to either pay for Spotify without advertisements or not use Spotify at all. No one is holding a gun to my head that I must have them (and I don’t after a promo period with Sprint) and they do have to pay licensing for that music (to include some kind of fee per x streams of given songs to ASCAP or whatever). That doesn’t even factor in the infrastructure requirements on their end. So why would anyone expect this to be totally free to a user?
kingosticks 8y ago
Section 9.10 > circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service
- hanspeter 8y ago
  This is not included in the terms I see (it redirects to specific terms for my country https://www.spotify.com/dk/legal/end-user-agreement/#s9 https://www.spotify.com/dk/legal/end-user-agreement/#s9) However if I change the country id to "us" I get the same version as you, and I can see this new section 9.10. If I google the new text, I find articles from yesterday about Spotify changing their terms in order to ban users using adblockers. So it appears that up until now, users has not had any agreement with Spotify that they will not block or circumvent ads.
  - jsgo 8y ago
    Maybe not spelled out as such, but in section 8 under rights a user provides to Spotify, the ability to serve ads to you is there. At least in the US terms. No idea for other countries.
    - hanspeter 8y ago
      See my other other answer about that. It's not relevant in this context.
  - kingosticks 8y ago
    I guess they are changing them incrementally. The terms changed for the UK last week (there seemingly was little interest from anyone). Unless there's something special in Danish law I'd expect yours to be updated soon.

jsgo 8y ago

You agree that they can serve them to you. Blocking them kind of stops that, yeah? 8 Rights you grant us In consideration for the rights granted to you under the Agreements, you grant us the right (1) to allow the Spotify Service to use the processor, bandwidth, and storage hardware on your Device in order to facilitate the operation of the Service, (2) to provide advertising and other information to you, and (3) to allow our business partners to do the same. In any part of the Spotify Service, the Content you access, including its selection and placement, may be influenced by commercial considerations, including Spotify’s agreements with third parties. Some Content licensed by, provided to, created by or otherwise made available by Spotify (e.g. podcasts) may contain advertising as part of the Content. The Spotify Service makes such Content available to you unmodified.

hanspeter 8y ago
Granting Spotify rights means that the user allow them to show them ads. It's in there to protect Spotify. A user agrees not to sue them, if Spotify put ads on their phone. It has nothing to do with whatever the user does to avoid being exposed to those ads.
- jsgo 8y ago
  That’s a very interesting take. What prior legal action justifies it? This seems more akin to cable services here. For all intents and purposes, all of the channels they provide are served to the home, but they then restrict based off the package you’re paying for. In Spotify’s case instead of restricting (unless they have premium only channels/content), they’re adding advertisements. To block the ads is analogous to using a method to remove the restriction on channels you can access, and the typical remedy is to terminate the service to that customer and/or seeking civil remedies.
  - hanspeter 8y ago
    I don't know if that's an interesting take. That's what it means. I'm unaware if there's any prior legal actions but terms are written not only for any prior legal actions but also for any possible legal actions. An analogy to cable services would be if you had something installed on your TV that automatically switched channel or put on a cat youtube video, when the commercials are on on and switched back when the commercials were done. Your example would be an analogy to having a script on Spotify which gave you access to some premium music library that only paying customers should have access to.
    - jsgo 8y ago
      Okay, how about this: it’d be like granting an entity (Spotify) the ability to put signs (advertisements) in your yard (browser window), and then when they go to do so, you prevent them from entering your yard (browser window). If it isn’t against the agreement directly, it certainly is against the spirit of it. And that holds a lot of weight. Because what is the point of being able to show you advertisements if you’re going to block them from even rendering? I get it. I don’t like ads either. Well, I’m generally fine if they make some degree of sense (none of the odd ones where it has a picture of an onion partially covered by a sock or something) or don’t hijack the browser (massive redirect that eats back history and presents me with some “congratulations, click here” thing). But if I don’t like the ads, I’m free to either pay for Spotify without advertisements or not use Spotify at all. No one is holding a gun to my head that I must have them (and I don’t after a promo period with Sprint) and they do have to pay licensing for that music (to include some kind of fee per x streams of given songs to ASCAP or whatever). That doesn’t even factor in the infrastructure requirements on their end. So why would anyone expect this to be totally free to a user?

kingosticks 8y ago

Section 9.10 > circumventing or blocking advertisements in the Spotify Service, or creating or distributing tools designed to block advertisements in the Spotify Service

hanspeter 8y ago
This is not included in the terms I see (it redirects to specific terms for my country https://www.spotify.com/dk/legal/end-user-agreement/#s9 https://www.spotify.com/dk/legal/end-user-agreement/#s9) However if I change the country id to "us" I get the same version as you, and I can see this new section 9.10. If I google the new text, I find articles from yesterday about Spotify changing their terms in order to ban users using adblockers. So it appears that up until now, users has not had any agreement with Spotify that they will not block or circumvent ads.
- jsgo 8y ago
  Maybe not spelled out as such, but in section 8 under rights a user provides to Spotify, the ability to serve ads to you is there. At least in the US terms. No idea for other countries.
  - hanspeter 8y ago
    See my other other answer about that. It's not relevant in this context.
- kingosticks 8y ago
  I guess they are changing them incrementally. The terms changed for the UK last week (there seemingly was little interest from anyone). Unless there's something special in Danish law I'd expect yours to be updated soon.