With nearly 700 million monthly active users across over 180 markets, Spotify is the world’s most popular music streaming service by a significant margin.
The streaming giant has always positioned itself as a competitor to pirate services, but its success also relied on pirates. In the early days, Spotify allegedly used MP3s from The Pirate Bay to populate its beta service. The notorious Swedish torrent site was instrumental in other ways too.
Times change, however, and today online piracy and related tools are a major nuisance for the Swedish company. They get in the way of selling subscriptions and hurt the company’s bottom line.
Spotify Takes Down ‘EeveeSpotify’
EeveeSpotify, a software tweak for iOS that allowed users to access premium features without having to sign up for a paid subscription, was especially popular. Like its defunct predecessor Spotilife, it offered an ad-free listening experience, access to lyrics, and the ability to play any song on demand.
Developer ‘whoeevee’ posted pre-compiled IPA application packages on GitHub, so users could easily download an already modified version of the Spotify app, including the necessary tweaks.
After EeveeSpotify gained substantial traction over the past year, Spotify stepped in, asking GitHub to remove the entire repository from its platform.
“The files identified below were derived from unauthorized copies of the Spotify Copyrights and/or the files identified below are derivative works based on the Spotify Copyrights,” Spotify wrote, listing the entire EeveeSpotify repository as problematic.
The takedown notice specifically mentions derivatives. This is accurate, as EeveeSpotify was distributed pre-compiled and included the Spotify application’s original copyrighted code. As a result, GitHub took action, disabling the entire repository as well as more than 500 forks.
‘EeveeSpotify Reborn’
The removal was a disappointment for many users as well as the developer. However, ‘whoeevee’ read the notice carefully and concluded that there may be a way for the popular code tweak to survive in the form of ‘EeveeSpotifyReborn‘.
Soon after Spotify’s DMCA notice was honored by GitHub, the developer posted a new repository on GitHub offering the same functionality, but with a key difference. EeveeSpotifyReborn does not include the IPA packages containing Spotify’s copyrighted code.
“The original EeveeSpotify repository was disabled due to a DMCA takedown. This repository will not contain the IPA packages, as they are most likely the reason for the takedown,” the developer notes.
Without an easy sideloading option, some users may find it harder to install the tweak. However, the developer no longer directly infringes Spotify’s copyright. At the same time, the legal responsibility for modifying the Spotify app shifts more towards the end-user who applies the patch.
Whether this will ensure availability of the code going forward is unknown. In its takedown notice, Spotify also mentions that it uses protection measures to control access to copyrighted content. The company may argue that the tweak violates the anti-circumvention provision of the DMCA and enables wider infringement by users of the tweak.
For now, EeveeSpotifyReborn, which already has more than 100 forks on GitHub, remains online.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
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