Europe's top on-demand music service, has cleared the various rights hurdles and is now available in the U.S. Plans are to offer three versions of the service: a Free service with access to 15 million songs, served up with occasional ads and a limit of 20 hours of use a month; Spotify Unlimited, where for $4.99 a month you can ditch the ads and time limits; and a Premium service that offers a higher bit rate (higher quality sound), access through mobile devices, and other features for $9.99 a month. The various plans include many of the social media features that have contributed to its popularity in Europe.
The "Free" service is currently only available in beta in the U.S., and not at all in Europe. The firm hopes the free option will create interest in the service, and drive users to it's pay options. There were already an estimated 2.5 million subscribers to pay music services in the U.S., compared to Spotify's current million subscribers in Europe, so they're strongly optimistic about entering the U.S. market.
And following along from the previous post, promoting further shift in use by music listeners from physical copies to being able to access across time and space.
Sources: "Spotify, with its streaming gigabytes of music, arrives in U.S." Connected Planet
Spotify U.S. announcement
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