Now I love Spotify as much as anyone so I’m not here to diss their overall music-streaming service which is great (I’ve been using the premium version for about three months now). But I do have a bone to pick with the crazily-restrictive, and just plain crazy, terms of their End User License Agreement, which is a prerequisite agreement for buying MP3s through the software.
Here are some of the worst bits, in which you agree to surrender personal control over the product you’re about to buy. I’d like to see a record store owner try and pass that crap off when I’m buying a CD, so why should it be the case with digital music? Like I said, I’m a big fan of Spotify, but I won’t be buying music from them anytime soon.
(ii) You are authorised to use the Content on up to five authorised devices at any time. 7digital reserves the right to limit the number of authorised devices further and the number of authorised downloads to comply with the requirements of its licensors.
(iii) You may not use Content as a musical “ringer” in connection with mobile phone calls.
What do you think? Do user agreements like this one go a step too far? Let us know in the comment thread.
I wrote this and wish we did not have to include such terms. Since 7digital and Spotify are licensed by the big four, we are required to include their specific clauses into our EULA. The important thing is that the majors have moved away from DRM. By offering MP3s for sale, there is great flexibility to manage your music collection. The fact that you get up to 5 back up copies stored for you on Spotify or 7digital is something no other retailer provides. EULAs at other legal download services will have similar notices about personal use only, please don’t email the files to your friends etc.
Alyssa, thank you for taking the time out to give your opinion, it’s very much welcome and I appreciate where you’re coming from.
I agree it’s a biggie that DRM is off the cards – hopefully that signals a step in the right direction. But it’s unfortunate that the same restrictions DRM was intended to enforce (ie. limited number of portable devices, no ringtones, etc.) are still part of an arbitary license agreement, which incedentally, most music-buying-kids won’t even read twice (let alone consider obeying!).
Martin,
The beautiful thing about the way it’s written is that for the end user, in reality they can copy the file to as many players as they want – the restriction is on the ‘use’ (aka. playing) of the file rather than the amount of backups, devices, etc. A badly written, unenforceable EULA – what’s new?!