Since 28 August, some new songs on Spotify India don't reach free listeners on release day. Premium subscribers get them first, and everyone else waits up to three days. Spotify calls it Premium Early Access. Universal Music Group was the first label to use it, under a campaign it calls "Hear It First", and the opening releases were Badshah and Divya Kumar's "Chimna" and Harrdy Sandhu's "Stuck On You", which went to Premium users on 28 August and to everyone on 31 August, as The Hindu BusinessLine reported.
If you're an independent artist wondering whether your next single will be held back from free users, the short answer is no, not unless someone chooses it. Longer answer below, because this pilot says a lot about where Indian streaming money is heading.
What Spotify has actually said
Spotify's support page for Premium Early Access is short and fairly clear. It covers Premium Standard, Platinum and Student plans in India. Only "select new releases where the artist and their label have chosen to offer early access" get the window. Not every release will have one. After up to three days, every listener gets the song, and nothing is held back permanently.
When Android Authority asked about it in September, Spotify described it as "a label pilot in India" (their write-up). The same article says the push came from UMG's 72-hour premium window for big releases in India, and that the window is expected to apply on other services with free tiers too, such as YouTube Music and Amazon Music. We haven't seen those services confirm it publicly, so treat that part as reported, not official.
Why a label would want this
It's about who pays. Spotify India's Dhruvank Vaidya told Moneycontrol on 2 November that India is one of Spotify's biggest and fastest-growing markets by users, and the same report notes that fewer than 10% of Indian users pay for Premium. A paid stream is generally worth more to the rights holder than an ad-supported one. If a Badshah fan upgrades just to hear the new song on Friday, the label wins twice.
Free listeners on Reddit were not happy, and some warned it would push people back to piracy. That's a real risk for a big Bollywood or Punjabi pop release, where fans are impatient and a leaked MP3 spreads on WhatsApp in hours.
Does it touch independent and regional artists?
Right now, not directly. Spotify's own wording ties it to UMG's campaign and to artist and label agreements. There is no self-serve button in Spotify for Artists that an independent Haryanvi singer can switch on, and we haven't seen Spotify announce one for distributors. If that changes, we'll write about it here.
Honestly, for most independent releases we wouldn't recommend it even if it were available. A new Bhojpuri or Rajasthani folk singer needs every possible listener on day one. Their audience is mostly on free plans, often on budget phones, and they find songs through Reels, YouTube and shared links. Holding a song back from those people for three days would hurt the first-week numbers that playlists and the algorithm look at.
There's a second point that matters more. If big label songs are held back from free users for three days, those listeners still open the app and still play something. That leaves a small gap in their feed and their Release Radar where an independent Punjabi or devotional song released the same Friday can get heard. We can't promise that, and there's no data on it yet, but it is a reason not to avoid big release weeks out of fear.
What we'd do if you're releasing soon
1. Release normally, to everyone, on day one. Upload at least a week or two early so you can pitch the song to Spotify editors (our release planning guide covers the timeline). 2. Build your own fans who pay attention on release day: a pre-save link, a countdown on Instagram, a WhatsApp broadcast to your followers. That's the same goal UMG is chasing, without locking anyone out. 3. Watch your Spotify for Artists numbers by listener type over the next few months. If Premium listeners grow on your profile, that's good for your per-stream earnings. 4. Keep an eye on whether YouTube Music or Amazon Music add a similar window. If they do and it becomes open to distributors, you'll want to decide release by release, not across your whole catalogue.
Where RMX fits
RMX Music delivers to 95+ platforms, including Spotify, JioSaavn, YouTube Music and Amazon Music, and passes on 95% of royalties. Over 3,000 artists and 2,200+ labels have released 20,000+ tracks through us, a lot of them in Haryanvi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi and devotional music, where free-tier listening is the norm. A Label account is a one-time ₹4,500 for life; an Agent account is ₹15,000 for life if you manage many labels.
If your next song is ready, create your RMX account and get it out to every listener on release day, free and paid.