Spotify recording and account bans

For Audials 2026, our recommendation still remains to record from Spotify web player and only using the normal speed, no high speed, no remote control, in order to avoid any issue with Spotify.
The Spotify website "lives" only in the browser and therefore, it does not have the ability to examine the computer and its audio system.

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Generally 

Audials offers a wide range of options for recording any music streaming service. This also includes the ability to record from Spotify. Various recording methods are possible:  

1.  Passive recording 

The streaming service is used "as is" and is being recorded in the background. 
(This is indistinguishable from playing on the streaming service's server).

      2. Optimized recording 

The streaming service is "accelerated" and/or "remote controlled" and recorded. 
(Of course, this can be seen on the server of the streaming service) 

In the past - especially in 2021 - there have been cases where Spotify temporarily banned users for using "detectable" recording methods (2). 

The Audials software is able to "warn" about data indicating the recording being created on the streaming provider's servers. 

August 2022 

We have received individual reports from a few users that they have been temporarily blocked on Spotify, although they have only recorded passively (1). We even have individual reports from users who didn't use any Audials software and didn't record, but the same thing happened to them anyway. 

So we did some technical research. 

It looks like that Spotify has built a new component into the Spotify software that examines the computer's "audio output" (and possibly other aspects of the system, we don't know) and reports the results back to Spotify. It might detect that the computer is "ready to record" while the Spotify app is running and this might lead to the account bans. 

(By the way, this "ready to record" could also be detected when using other software that "accesses the system audio" - such as video conferencing, but that is pure speculation). 

To be on the safe side, we have therefore decided to switch on the "Privacy & data protection" warning in the Audials software for all recordings from the Spotify software.