The NY Post reports a spokeswoman for the Swedish music-streaming service said a Friday report from Bloomberg that it was tweaking its search engine to punish certain acts was “unequivocally false.”
The company declined to comment on other parts of the story, which said that Spotify has told artists their songs won’t be featured on promoted playlists if they sign deals with competitors.
The Friday report came after Frank Ocean’s new album “Blonde” debuted exclusively on Apple Music this weekend, where it is expected to remain for the next week or two before becoming available on Spotify.
The dispute over exclusives comes as Spotify is angling to launch an initial public offering by the end of next year. With about 30 million subscribers, Spotify is currently generating about $2 billion in revenue.
Apple Music, which launched little more than a year ago, said in June it has amassed 15 million paying subscribers without disclosing revenue.
Spotify still isn’t profitable, according to reports, partly because record labels take about 55 percent of that revenue, as well as an additional cut to publishers.
According to Bloomberg, Apple and Spotify have been feuding since before Apple Music’s debut, and competition between the two ratcheted up again in the last several weeks after Apple proposed changing songwriting royalties in a way that would increase costs for competitors like Spotify by putting its music in a different category that requires a higher rate. Spotify has also accused Apple of blocking a new version of its iPhone app, the latest volley in an ongoing dispute over Apple’s cut of sales from its app store. Apple denied blocking Spotify’s app, saying its rival hadn’t met its terms of service.
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