Our fave music streaming app, Spotify, has announced that selected independent artists will be able to upload their music directly to the service, which bypasses the need for third-party distributors that to date have been the only way for indies to get their material on the world’s biggest music-streaming platform.

The new feature is available through the standalone Spotify for Artists app and will launch in beta today for a ‘selected group of artists’. This doesn’t mean the process will be as easy as publishing music directly on the platform (like you can on, say, Soundcloud) — there’s still a process in place to check for copyright infringements and duplicates. But it’s a welcome step to help independents reach larger audiences, and make money from their output.

How it works

The new feature won’t turn Spotify into SoundCloud or YouTube anytime soon. For now it’s invitation-only for a few hundred artists in the US, but Spotify says it hopes to expand the offering to other countries and artists in due course.

Spotify for Artists is already a platform used by artists that have music published on the service which allows them to view metrics and monitor the performance of their content. Using the platform, those artists invited to test out the feature can upload tracks (whether singles, EPs or albums), submit them for review, add artwork and other pertinent info, and schedule a release date for it to go live.

If you’re an independent keen to get involved you can stay up to date with artist invites on the Spotify website.

Source: Spotify blog