As promised, online music service Spotify officially launched in the U.S. on Thursday with two paid options and an invite-only free version.
At this point, Spotify is in an invite-only beta phase, the company said. To get access to the free version, enter your email address on Spotify.com and you might be among the few to nab an invite. Don't want to wait? Sign up for Spotify Unlimited, which runs $4.99 per month, or Spotify Premium for $9.99 per month.
Spotify provides access to the company's library of 15 million songs, and you can also import MP3s you already own. You can create and manage playlists, and discover new music via the 250 million playlists posted by other users. When you find new tunes, you can share with friends on Spotify or through social-networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, as well as email and text. Your Spotify profile will display top tracks, artists, and playlists; people can subscribe to your playlists and vice versa and there's the option to drop specific tracks in a friend's inbox.
Spotify Free provides ad-supported access to the company's library, social features, file management, and the ability to sync songs with a cell phone or iPod. Spotify said the free version will include unlimited streaming for now. Limits will be put in place in the next few weeks, though it was not clear what those limits will be. In April, demand prompted Spotify to limit the free version of its overseas option to 10 hours of listening time per month after a six-month, 20 hours per month trial. Users were also limited to playing each track five times.
Spotify Unlimited, meanwhile, provides access to everything available on Spotify Free but without the ads, for $4.99 per month.
Need a little more? Spotify Premium provides "all the music, all the time," including offline mode, the company said, presumably without the listening time limits. "Enjoy enhanced sound quality and access to exclusive content, competitions and special offers."
"We believe that music is the most social thing there is and that's why we've built the best social features into Spotify for easy sharing and the ultimate in music discovery," Daniel Ek, founder and CEO of Spotify, said in a statement. "Even if you aren't a total music freak, chances are you have a friend who is and whose taste you admire. I'm looking forward to connecting with some of you in Spotify and discovering some cool new tracks."
Spotify is teaming up with several corporate partners for the U.S. launch. Coca-Cola and Sprite, Chevrolet, Motorola, Reebok, Sonos, and The Daily will all launch campaigns with Spotify in the coming weeks and months, the company said. Motorola said it is the exclusive mobile device and tablet launch partner for Spotify's U.S. launch, which will provide Motorola customers with early access to Spotify.
Ken Parks, chief content officer and managing director for Spotify North America, said the service was launching as a "better, simpler alternative to piracy."
"We have full catalogues from all the major labels and a raft of independent labels including those represented by Merlin, which means all of their artists are being fairly compensated for their creativity every time people enjoy music through Spotify," Parks said.
Those music label deals were the reason it took so long for Spotify to launch here in the states, but after months of negotiations, the company has locked down the major U.S. labels. Before today, Spotify was only available in Finland, France, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom. Spotify gave PCMag an inside look at the service last year and we were eager for it to launch stateside. For more, check out PCMag's full review and the slideshow below.
Spotify launched in October 2008 and reached 1 million users by March 2009. By April, the site had signed on 1 million paid subscribers.
Editor's Note: This story was updated at 2pm Eastern with more details.