Spotify users who don't have a paid subscription will see their listening time cut from 20 hours per month to 10 hours, the company has announced.
Free users will also be restricted to playing a song five times before they have to buy it or sign up for the subscription service.
The new restrictions will come into force for new users after they have been using the service for six months. Until then, they will be allowed to listen to 20 hours of music a month.
Spotify, which is currently based only in Europe, said the new measures were intended to help the company grow.
Ken Parks, Spotify’s chief content officer, said the company was determined to keep the free service, but that it need to “balance a number of priorities”.
Existing Spotify free users who joined before November 1 will move onto the new terms on May 1.
Spotify recently announced that it had secured one million paid subscribers.
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