Spotify integrates one-click music downloads

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 15 Oct 2009 at 11:15

7Digital has burrowed even deeper into Spotify, allowing you to buy albums and tracks without leaving the streaming-music service.

Users of Spotify will have noticed that a Buy icon has appeared beneath albums and beside tracks, which immediately opens a small payment information screen.

Once you've filled out your card details the album begins downloading in the background, without requiring you to leave the service, or interrupt your music.

Downloaded tracks are added to a 'Purchases' menu within Spotify, and as with buying from the 7Digital website they're encoded in the 320Kbits/sec MP3 format and added to your locker, allowing you to download as many copies as you want.

It's all rather neat, and timely, given Sky's recent announcement that it's readying its own music service, dubbed Sky Songs.

The service will operate on a subscription basis, offering users the ability to stream music for free and download one album or 10 individual tracks for £6.49 per month.

The integration with Spotify comes courtesy of the 7Digital API, which has already been used to bring 7Digital to BlackBerry smartphones. According to Ben Drury, 7Digital's chief executive, ceding download services such as 7Digital across the web, is the best way of combating illegal filesharing.

"We've got to even better and better legal services so people can get their music wherever they are, and don't even need to think about [downloading it illegally]. The consumption of music is still going up, we just need to offer different consumption models that suit people," Drury told PC Pro.