Technology turns us into amateur photographers, amateur DJs, and even writers. Spotify will soon turn us into amateur music producers, allowing us to remix our own songs – that is, do it legally. The streaming company is developing tools to allow those with a subscription to alter music to fit their needs.
New Spotify Tools
Spotify seems to always have something in the works, trying to outdo Apple Music. Perhaps these new tools will do the trick. Under Spotify’s plan, subscribers would have additional remixing tools through playback. This would allow them to speed up or slow down songs, change the pitch, and remix songs with others, then save the new version to a collection.
This may not be something new for you if you frequent TikTok. Users on that platform frequently change the speed and pitch of songs that are posted. But these tools would allow you to remix and share directly on Spotify. Again, this isn’t something that Apple Music currently allows.
It’s unknown how remixing songs would affect the price you pay for Spotify. Currently, users pay $10.99 for the music service. Perhaps the new song remixing tools would be included in that price, or they may even become part of a premium tier. Spotify announced last week that it would be raising prices in the U.K., Australia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Ghana this month, and would do so in the U.S. later this year.
Artist and Label Profits
While you can already remix your songs and share them through dance challenges, memes, and live videos – and don’t need Spotify – the problem is you may not be doing it legally. Remixing in other ways usually doesn’t benefit the artists and labels who’ve worked on the songs. It’s quite possible that the version of a song you are listening to over and over on social media was created without the artist’s or label’s knowledge, and it’s hard to track.
Although, if you try to use a licensed song on some platforms, you’ll be told that you don’t own the rights to share the song, and you’re forced to choose a song that has no attachment to you.
Tip: learn how to download songs on Spotify.
With Spotify’s new service, that would change. The music industry has already changed with streaming, as you don’t need to buy a physical form of music. Artist Taylor Swift fought for that with the debut of Apple Music, making sure artists got a cut of the streamed music – not for herself, but for the struggling artists out there who need to be recognized for their work.
And that would justify Spotify’s need to charge more for the service if they’re going to share the profits from it with artists and labels. The question is whether Spotify subscribers would agree to pay for the right to remix music and share it, when they can already do it in other ways. Want to dump Spotify before the subscription price change? Check out these Spotify alternatives, then learn how to delete your Spotify account.
Image credit: Unsplash
