Spotify To Close Beta Program That Let Indie Artists Upload Music Directly

At the end of July Spotify will close its Upload Beta Program, which has let independent artists upload their music directly to Spotify for the past year.

“Thank you to the artists who participated in our upload beta,” said Spotify in a statement. “We’re incredibly proud to have played a small part in the music they released. Spotify wouldn’t be what it is today without artists and labels who are willing to collaborate with us to build a better experience for creators and listeners.”

Spotify is working with distribution partners to help simplify the transition for artists who uploaded music through the beta. Spotify will stop accepting any new uploads through Spotify for Artists, and artists will need to move their already released content to another provider. Artists who have released music in the beta should review FAQs and keep an eye on their email for more details — including discount codes from our preferred distributors.

A note released to Spotify artist users includes the following statement:

The insights and feedback Spotify received from artists in the beta led us to believe:

The most impactful way we can improve the experience of delivering music to Spotify for as many artists and labels as possible is to lean into the great work our distribution partners are already doing to serve the artist community. Over the past year, we’ve vastly improved our work with distribution partners to ensure metadata quality, protect artists from infringement, provide their users with instant access to Spotify for Artists, and more.

The best way for us to serve artists and labels is to focus our resources on developing tools in areas where Spotify can uniquely benefit them — like Spotify for Artists (which more than 300,000 creators use to gain new insight into their audience) and our playlist submission tool (which more than 36,000 artists have used to get playlisted for the very first time since it launched a year ago). We have a lot more planned here in the coming months.