Spotify Now Has Music Videos (but Not for Everyone)
Good news: Spotify is finally adding music videos to its catalog. The bad news: Music videos probably aren’t available where you live.
According to TechCrunch , the company has launched a beta version to support music videos, but only in 11 countries: Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Kenya, the Netherlands, Poland, the Philippines, Sweden and the UK. If you live outside of these regions, you may not be able to access music videos at this time. You’ll just need to use the app as usual and try to forget that the video is in there somewhere .
On the other hand, Spotify has plans to expand music video support to more territories in addition to more videos. There is no time frame for when this will happen, nor any indication of which countries will be next.
It is not enough to simply live in one of these supported areas. To watch music videos in the Spotify app on your mobile device or computer, you’ll also need to subscribe to Spotify Premium. Assuming you pay for Spotify, you’ll now see a “Switch to Video” option every time you play a song with a compatible video. The video will appear where the album art would normally be and playback will start from the beginning. You can switch back to audio only using the Switch to Audio option, but if you allow video to play, Spotify will automatically play whatever song is next in your queue.
As Mashable notes , you can also find the video on the artist page, located in the video carousel. Our sister site was able to find videos from artists such as Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Doja Cat, Charli XCX, RAYE and Renee Rapp.
These videos are not brought into the app through YouTube or any other external source. They’re all hosted directly on Spotify, meaning you shouldn’t encounter any ads or interruptions. (You are a Spotify Premium user, after all.) Spotify hasn’t told TechCrunch how the company will handle royalties, but hopefully artists will get a fair share every time you watch one of their videos.
Spotify takes aim at YouTube
I can’t imagine YouTube being too happy about this development. Spotify users obviously default to the audio app, but instead of a video catalogue, YouTube has long been the natural choice when you want to watch a visual version of a song. While free users will still flock to YouTube to satisfy their video needs, Premium subscribers will have less reason to do so, especially as Spotify adds more videos and more supported territories. And since Spotify hosts these videos itself, subscribers won’t have to worry about advertising, and YouTube won’t see passive income from users moving away from their platform.
While the change likely won’t have much of an impact on Apple Music, which also offers video, it will likely draw some business away from YouTube by offering subscribers something new without a commensurate increase in their monthly subscription cost. Bad for Google, but good for Spotify users. (At least once he lands in their area.)