Spotify Faces Legal Challenge Over Third-Party App Enabling Free Premium Features
Spotify is confronting a legal battle with Revanced, an open-source provider offering patches that unlock premium features for users without a subscription. The dispute centers on allegations that Revanced circumvents Spotify’s copyright protections and encryption protocols, potentially violating the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Spotify, a dominant force in the music streaming industry, typically restricts ad-free listening, song skipping, and offline playback to paying subscribers. Revanced provides a workaround, primarily for Android users, allowing access to these premium functionalities without a paid account. This capability has become particularly relevant following Spotify’s recent introduction of Spotify Lossless, another premium-tier offering.
According to a report on Revanced’s website, Spotify issued a DMCA Takedown Notice via Github, accusing the project of dealing with Spotify’s encryption and transfer key protocol. “The accusation is that Revanced deals with encryption and the transfer key protocol from Spotify and violated its copyrights,” the report stated.
Revanced vehemently defends its position, asserting that its software does not enable song downloads and does not copy Spotify’s code. Instead, the company argues that the patch simply unlocks existing comfort functions, such as song skipping, already accessible within the Spotify ecosystem. “The songs made accessible are also accessible without the patch by Spotify. Patch would only make comfort functions such as skipping songs,” a Revanced representative explained.
However, Revanced acknowledges uncertainty regarding the potential outcome of a legal challenge. In response, the project’s managers are actively seeking legal counsel specializing in copyright and DMCA law.
The current legal action follows a prior “cat-and-mouse game” between Spotify and Revanced, as reported by tarnkappe.info, which escalated over the summer. Spotify initially tightened its server-side controls, causing issues for users of modified apps, including empty playlists and unplayable songs. Revanced countered by integrating a librespot library, effectively mimicking a standard desktop client – a tactic that initially proved difficult for Spotify’s servers to detect.
The development of this technically robust solution is believed to have prompted Spotify’s escalation to legal measures. Ultimately, the dispute is likely to be resolved in court.
As a precautionary measure, Revanced has removed the Spotify Premium patches from its official Github page. The extent to which existing users are affected by the DMCA notice remains unclear, as neither Revanced nor Spotify has publicly commented on this specific point.
