Spotify forced to remove songs from music library

The ad-funded music streaming service Spotify has taken early-adopting music fans by storm in recent weeks, allowing instant, legal and free access to millions of tunes at the click of a mouse button.

However, Spotify is now reportedly being forced to remove certain tunes from its database due to confusion over the deals it has with certain record labels and musicians.

According to the Spotify blog, the service will remove an (unspecified) number of songs from its library in February until further notice.

Only a one-off cull

The blog post adds that: "From this point on there are no plans to remove any more music and our catalogue will only grow from here.

"We already have music from all the major labels and a vast majority of the independent labels licensed, between them we have millions of tracks that we still can add into Spotify.com.

"Now it's a matter of importing that music into our system, which we are doing on an ongoing basis in an effort to add thousands of albums a week."

If you have yet to get involved in the beta then head to www.spotify.com to beg, borrow or steal an invite from somebody as soon as you can.

Right, time to get back to that rare Tom Waits album we've been trying to find for years....