Spotify to offer 15 free hours of audiobook streaming per month

Spotify has introduced a new feature, allowing users to stream up to 15 hours of audiobooks for free each month.

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The streaming platform rolled out the new feature in the UK and Australia yesterday (October 3), and is set to bring it over to users in the US by the end of the year.

It comes after Spotify began introducing audiobooks to its library in September last year, however, they were never offered to users for free, and even premium subscribers had to pay individually for each title.

Now, with the new launch, the platform has confirmed that it will be offering all paying subscribers 15 hours of free audiobook listening each month. It has also introduced more payment plans to its system, meaning that users can pay to extend the 15-hour limit, or pay to purchase the whole book outright.

A large number of literary titles are available on the service, and having struck partnerships with publishing giants such as Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette, and Simon & Schuster, Spotify now claims to be the “largest of any subscription-based audiobook streaming platform currently on the market”. Find out more here.

As highlighted by outlets including Consequence and The Hollywood Reporter, the update to Spotify comes amid the brand’s recent disagreement with Apple regarding in-app audiobook purchases. However, with the new feature, it seems that Spotify may have harnessed a loophole in app store regulations.

As THR reports, if Spotify allowed users to purchase an audiobook through their app, then around 30 per cent of the revenue would be given to Apple. That being said, now users can spend 15 hours each month enjoying an audiobook at no extra expense.

The new update for audiobooks is just one of the new features that Spotify has been rolling out this year. Just last month, the platform launched Showcase – a new tool which allows artists to pay to have their music promoted on the site’s homepage.

In other Spotify news, last week the company’s boss, Daniel Ek, weighed in on the controversial debate about the use of artificial intelligence in music – confirming that the streaming service has no plans to completely ban AI-generated content.

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