Spotify in Ireland! It Works
I was in the UK last week for a welcome break, and everyone there, from my tech-savvy gearslut mates in Brighton (“Silicon Beach” to the rest of us) to my 11 year old niece in Clapham were raving about Spotify. And they have every reason to rave.
Spotify, for the uninitiated (which will be most of us in Ireland) allows you to listen to virtually any tune you care to hear instantaneously, and for free. The only price you pay is the odd advertisement every few minutes. Check out http://www.spotify.com for more details.
Using Spotify was exciting and terrifying in equal measure. It truly is the future of music listening, and it’s only a matter of time before the mobile app version for your favourite MID (Mobile Information Device, what the rest of us call, er, phones) makes it accessible everywhere you go.
Of course, as a musician, I am looking at this thinking, “where’s the paycheck coming from?” It’s not that I’m a breadhead, it’s just that I would like to think it’s possible to still make a living out of music. We all know YouTube makes no money, and clearly, neither does Spotify (yet at least), and if Spotify doesn’t make money, you can be pretty darn sure the music ain’t making much money for the artists either.
But I digress! The real reason for this entry is to let people know that Spotify (for free) appears to work in Ireland! Yeah, sure if you go to the site, under the “free” banner it says “Not available in your country”, but it seems while Spotify’s web site knows what country you are in, the application does not! In other words, if you get someone in the UK to create a username and password for you, and you download the app from the site, I have (almost) every confidence that you too, in Ireland, can Spotify!
Someone try it to confirm, please! I’m too busy Spotifying to try it for myself.
Tags: Audio, Music, Music Business, Spotify
June 8th, 2009 at 38 06386u30e42 ppm4230 2 386 3002e pm
yup, it works
spot on!
June 8th, 2009 at 46 06466u30e58 ppm5830 3 466 3003e pm
Brill
August 13th, 2009 at 39 08398u31e31 ppm3131 8 398 3108e pm
Bad news… I got a message when I opened spotify (in ireland) yesterday saying I was travelling and could only use spotify outside the uk for a limited time
Tried it tonight I’m all locked out!
Bummer!
Was great while it lasted
August 27th, 2009 at 11 08118u31e03 ppm0331 7 118 3107e pm
Go to edit profile and change your country back to ireland and post code to whatever. That works
August 27th, 2009 at 02 08028u31e55 ppm5531 10 028 3110e pm
Nice one, Cell Man!
September 8th, 2009 at 13 09139u30e50 ppm5030 9 139 3009e pm
I used that trick but it looks like they have changed their system again. I downloaded it in the UK and used it there. When I came back to Ireland it said I could only use spotify outside the uk for a limited time. I changed the default country to Ireland and used 0000 but tonight it is again telling me spotify is not available in Ireland. Any ideas to fix this??I am missing the music
September 8th, 2009 at 42 09429u30e19 ppm1930 9 429 3009e pm
Same problem
It was working until this morning…
September 10th, 2009 at 36 09369u30e07 pam0730 6 369 3006e am
Spotify sent a mail to all Irish users, they’ve cut off their free service, i guess too many people here were listening to it. Only way around it is to go premium, which i did – it’s a great price considering it costs less then an album a month, and if you’re on eircom it cuts down the illegal downloading…
September 10th, 2009 at 38 09389u30e14 pam1430 10 389 3010e am
I guess for a tenner it’s worth it alright, though it seems a little unfair that our neighbours across the sea are getting it free!
September 10th, 2009 at 42 09429u30e01 pam0130 10 429 3010e am
By the way, there is another blog entry on this topic here – http://www.moanincronin.com/2009/06/13/spotify-in-ireland-not-quite/
March 16th, 2010 at 49 03493u31e26 ppm2631 11 493 3111e pm
Try using one of your old logins, I just logged in using a login I created back in mid 2009 and its working fine. Not sure how long it will last but its worth a go!
Btw, I’m an Irish user.
Godspeed!
March 25th, 2010 at 24 03243u31e48 pam4831 5 243 3105e am
Yea, my account has stopped now Im on the right side of the sea!
BTW artists are getting money from Spotify and PRS through advertising, Spotify direct adverts towards certain types of people, eg if you listen to Hip Hop & Rap, you get advertisements for guns, lol, well not quite but you get the picture. Its’ a sophisticated advertising network that is able to charge a premium for its advertising space as it is so well targeted.
Which is probably why we cant get it free here, the business’s advertising are UK based and Spotify are trying to build up their customer base in the UK so they can charge even more for the advertising and add more music and attract more people.
Its a brilliant advertising platform, it gives people free music, advertisers the chance to reach certain people who don’t read newspapers etc, music artists get royalties and Spotify take a nice cut of the ad money.
http://Ireland-Advertising.com have more on the possibility of getting Spotify in Ireland if you want to get in contact with them. I asked when we can get it for free, but they said there were no plans to do that here yet, must be because there is so few of us here.