Spotify Play Button brings music to blogs, websites

CNN Wire Service

Spotify is letting bloggers and website managers embed songs from its vast music library for free.

Introduced Wednesday, the Spotify Play Button is a widget that will let Web users listen to songs, playlists or entire albums without having to leave the page they’re viewing.

“(T)he Spotify Play Button is a simple yet extremely powerful music widget that makes it easier than ever to deliver all the world’s music to fans of your website or blog,” Spotify spokesman Diego Planas Rego wrote on the streaming service’s blog.

The feature’s Web page also addressed the major questions about music sharing in the Internet age:

“Totally free. Totally legal. Totally awesome,” it reads.

The feature will let Spotify users who install the button simply to click on songs on the site, then copy them onto their own site. It will work for people who use Spotify’s free service as well as premium users who pay a monthly fee for ad-free, unlimited listening.

While the tool can be used across all types of blogs and sites, Tumblr announced that it has partnered with Spotify, incorporating the tool directly into its blogging platform.

Spotify also partnered with websites, including Virgin Media, New Music Express, Mashable, The Guardian and Rolling Stone, which will display buttons letting visitors listen to music while on those sites.

Launched in the United States in July, Spotify has more than 10 million users and more than 15 million songs in its database.

In December, Spotify founder Daniel Ek said that making music more accessible was one of the site’s goals.

“We believe that music should be like water. It should just exist everywhere …,” Ek told CNN. “What we are really trying to do (is) making music more accessible.”