As we head into the end of November, Spotify Wrapped 2025 is due to be released any day now. Discussed among friends and shared across social media, Wrapped is generally perceived by subscribers as a celebration of their own year in music.
But subscribers should be aware of what they’re really celebrating. The controversies lurking behind Spotify’s popularity entail a manifold list of legal concerns. Accordingly, subscribers should be asking themselves two important questions: what is Spotify Wrapped really, and more importantly, what exactly are we celebrating when we engage with it?
“Spotify Wrapped is our annual thank you to users, artists, creators and authors around the world, ”[1] says Spotify, today’s domineering music streaming platform. To the company, Wrapped is a love letter to the parties that make its business possible.
To subscribers, Wrapped is a data-driven, visual recap of personal listening history, and can feel like a reflective, gratifying journey through time. To artists, it’s presented as an opportunity to highlight their shows, build hype around their upcoming music, and make their Spotify profiles stand out.[2]
To critics, Wrapped is a hatchet job. Legal experts and regulatory bodies are concerned with several aspects of Spotify’s practices, which appear to directly harm artists, copyright owners, and subscribers. To those who are aware of the legal issues, celebrating the arrival of Wrapped feels like celebrating a platform that exploits the artists and subscribers it claims to love and protect.
In reality, what started as a humble marketing campaign has turned into a cultural phenomenon. Wrapped is engaging because it’s built to be an “interactive experience.”[3] It generates excitement because it’s only released at the end of each year – a novel source of genuine anticipation in today’s world of clip-culture and on-demand binge-watching. The model is quite brilliant, rooted in human psychology: personalization, self-determination, emotional engagement, data visualization, cognitive load theory, shareability, social comparison theory, gamification, and storytelling.[4]
People love Spotify Wrapped, they love Spotify’s entire interactive, personalized platform, and they will continue to do so. Herein lies the major concern of Spotify’s critics. Wrapped is problematic because it’s actually a celebration of Spotify itself – not of the music, artists, or listeners. Subscribers who think Wrapped is a story about themselves are really watching a story about the platform they’re paying for. Wrapped is a love letter to itself.
So, in celebrating Spotify at the end of each year, what are we really celebrating? The following lawsuits and regulatory investigations paint the picture clearly. Behind the ruse, Spotify’s practices harm subscribers and musicians. This year, as we watch Wrapped unfurl, we should keep this non-exhaustive list of controversies in mind.
First off, Spotify’s failure to obtain licenses results in copyright infringement.[5] In one high-profile lawsuit, Wixen Music Publishing sued Spotify for allegedly streaming thousands of songs from its catalog—including works by Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, Neil Young, and The Doors—without obtaining proper mechanical licenses for the compositions.[6] Though Spotify held licenses for the sound recordings, Wixen claimed the failure to properly secure licenses for the compositions amounted to infringement of more than 10,000 songs and sought $1.6 billion in damages, before the parties ultimately reached a settlement in 2018.[7]
Negligence like this hurts artists. Mechanical royalties are how songwriters and publishers get paid when their musical compositions are reproduced, manufactured, or distributed, whether physically or digitally.[8] Under U.S. copyright law, the owner of musical works has exclusive rights enumerated in § 106.[9] When licenses to use protected works are not properly obtained, the artists do not get paid, they lose bargaining power and control over how their work is used, and their legal rights are ignored. Songwriters already struggle to earn a living under mechanical royalty rate structures, even more so since the advent of streaming.[10] Spotify’s mishandling of licenses only exacerbates the challenge. The “gift” of Wrapped is hardly any consolation for such a violation of rights and respect.
Secondly, Spotify’s data privacy practices raise concerns around transparency and users’ legal rights. Spotify collects and analyzes extensive personal data from its subscribers, including listening history, search queries, device identifiers, approximate location, and in-app interactions.[11] These practices are necessary to personalize content,[12]but regulators warn that Spotify’s current data usage policies do not effectively honor users’ rights. By way of illustration, in 2023, Sweden’s data protection authority fined Spotify the equivalent of €5 million for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which went into effect in 2018 and was upheld in 2025 to strengthen the rights of individuals.[13] The same year, U.S. attorneys launched investigations into Spotify’s tracking technologies. Attorneys believed Spotify was potentially tracking and sharing data with Meta secretly,[14]which would violate the Video Privacy Protection Act.[15] Such investigations underscore uncertainty around transparency, user control, and the scope of third-party tracking.
Wrapped is perhaps the greatest example of subscribers’ love for Spotify’s personalized functionality. But subscribers should be aware that the very practices that enable Spotify to curate this type of content are practices that indirectly exploit them. Spotify derives value from granular information about its users’ listening habits, demographics, devices, and engagement, which it uses to refine recommendation algorithms, sell targeted advertising, and develop insights for artists, labels, and brand partners. This behavioral data is an inherent element of how the platform operates and generates revenue. Yet subscribers are not compensated for the use of their data in these ways. Instead, they pay for access to the service while their personal information and usage patterns function as an additional, uncompensated asset in Spotify’s broader business model. In this sense, Wrapped is a gift subscribers bought themselves.
Next, allegedly fraudulent streaming on Spotify reveals the platform’s susceptibility to manipulation. On November 2, 2025, Rapper Eric Dwayne Collins (RBX) filed a proposed class action in the Central District of California, alleging Spotify allowed “billions of fraudulent streams” from bot accounts to inflate overall engagement and advertising revenue.[16] If true, royalty payouts would be skewed in favor of bot-boosted tracks.[17] Spotify pools subscription and advertising income each month and distributes that revenue to rights holders based on their share of total streams. The claim asserts that artificial plays from fraudulent bots increase the allocation of royalties to certain artists at the expense of others.[18] RBX does not claim that Spotify participated in generating the fraud, but rather brought negligence and unfair competition claims.[19] A Spotify spokesperson has responded that Spotify does not benefit from artificial streaming and invests heavily in systems to detect and remove fake streams and withhold related royalties.[20] While the outcome of this recent case is far from resolved, this sort of claim should alert subscribers: Spotify’s royalty-distribution mechanism to highly susceptible to manipulation, leaving hardworking artists, especially small acts, highly vulnerable.
Lastly, just weeks ago, Spotify was accused of quietly steering music discovery, thereby causing harm to both artists and subscribers. A new class action challenged Spotify’s Discovery Mode and related recommendation tools. It alleges Spotify’s practices are a “modern form of payola,”[21] in reference to the old payola scandal wherein record companies would secretly pay broadcasters to play their songs on the radio.[22] An undisclosed exchange of this nature is illegal under section 317 of the Communications Act of 1934.[23]
The complaint contends that Spotify generates recommended playlists and markets them as neutral and personalized, yet in truth, the playlists more heavily feature artists and labels that accept reduced royalties in exchange for boosted visibility.[24] The suit argues this exchange creates a structural advantage for major-label and higher-budget acts, while independent or smaller artists are pushed further down the algorithmic ladder.[25] For subscribers, the case claims this setup is unfair because they pay for a service advertised as delivering playlists “made just for you,” but simultaneously are not clearly told where or how the track list is derived. If the allegations are true, then it would seem Spotify’s financial incentives, rather than pure listening history, quietly steer subscribers’ music discovery.[26] If pure listening history no longer exists, then it’s hard to argue a pure Wrapped exists either.
These legal issues illustrate how Spotify, as the leader in music streaming, has the power to take advantage of artists and subscribers. Music industry history shows that artists, especially songwriters, have always been exploited – Spotify is not the first there. But Spotify can be the first to use its power to create fair business practices, to set an example for other streaming platforms in respecting legal rights. Spotify has the power to make the future of music streaming better.
As we watch our Wrapped in the approaching days and reflect on our past year in music, let’s also reflect on what we want our future to look like. When we voice our beliefs and take a stand on how music should be experienced, then we’ll really have something worth celebrating.
[1] Spotify Wrapped, Spotify, https://support.spotify.com/us/article/spotify-wrapped/ (last visited Nov. 23, 2025).
[2] Get ready for 2025 Wrapped, Spotify for Artists, https://artists.spotify.com/get-ready-for-wrapped (last visited Nov. 23, 2025).
[3] Spotify Wrapped, supra note 1.
[4] Prajakta Pharande, Why We’re Hooked on Spotify Wrapped: The Perfect Blend of UX and Psychology, Medium (December 10, 2024), https://medium.com/design-bootcamp/why-were-hooked-on-spotify-wrapped-the-perfect-blend-of-ux-and-psychology-b4aa06c9b81f.
[5] Renee Fabian, Spotify Under Fire For Failing To Properly License Music – Again, Recording Academy (January 5, 2018), https://www.recordingacademy.com/advocacy/news/spotify-under-fire-failing-properly-license-music–again.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Understanding Mechanical and Performance Royalties, CD Baby Help Center (last updated Oct. 23, 2025), https://support.cdbaby.com/hc/en-us/articles/204499905-Understanding-Mechanical-and-Performance-Royalties.
[9] 17 U.S.C. § 106.
[10] Sam Ross, Music Streaming Services’ Procedural Victory in Songwriter Royalty Rate Legal Battle, Univ. Mia. Bus. L. Rev: Insights (Oct. 26, 2020), https://business-law-review.law.miami.edu/music-streaming-services-procedural-victory-songwriter-royalty-rate-legal-battle/.
[11]Spotify Privacy Policy, Spotify, https://www.spotify.com/us/legal/privacy-policy/ (last visited Nov. 23, 2025).
[12] Id.
[13] Administrative fee against Spotify, IMY Swedish Authority for Privacy Protection (June 13, 2023), https://www.imy.se/en/news/administrative-fee-against-spotify/.
[14] Legal Investigation Looks into Spotify Over Potential Privacy Violations, ClassAction.org (last updated June 21, 2023), https://www.classaction.org/spotify-video-privacy-lawsuit.
[15] Id.
[16] Ivan Moreno, Spotify Lets Bots Stream Drake As Other Artists Pay, Suit Says, LAW360 (Nov. 4, 2025), https://www.law360.com/articles/2407044/spotify-lets-bots-stream-drake-as-other-artists-pay-suit-says.
[17] Id.
[18] Id.
[19] Id.
[20] Id.
[21] Tracy Bagdonas, Spotify Lawsuit Alleges ‘Personalized’ Song Recommendations Are Based On Pay-for-Play Monetary Incentives, ClassAction.org (Nov. 6, 2025), https://www.classaction.org/blog/spotify-lawsuit-alleges-personalized-song-recommendations-are-based-on-pay-for-play-monetary-incentives.
[22] Payola, History of Rock https://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm, (last visited Nov. 23, 2025).
[23] Payola and Sponsorship Identification, Federal Communications Commission (last updated Aug. 7, 2019), https://www.fcc.gov/general/payola-and-sponsorship-identification.
[24] Bagdonas, supra note 21.
[25] Id.
[26] Camila Curcio, Spotify Faces New Class Action Lawsuit Alleging ‘Payola-Style’ Practices in Discovery Mode, Law Commentary (Nov. 6, 2025), https://www.lawcommentary.com/articles/spotify-faces-new-class-action-lawsuit-alleging-payola-style-practices-in-discovery-mode.