Oxford University Blocks Spotify for Network Congestion

Spotify has proven very popular in the UK, especially with the younger crowd who appreciates the free streaming service's large catalog and ease of use. So popular in fact that it clogged up the Internet pipes at Oxford University, which had to resort to drastic measures to ensure that its free Internet access could still function up to spec. The university claims that students were using the service so much that it slowed down the network for everyone. As expected, Spotify's users from the Oxford campus aren't thrilled about the new prospects.

"Spotify is a music streaming service. It relies on a peer-to-peer system for distribution of content, and its use is therefore forbidden on the University network," the Oxford University explained. This may be a bit of misunderstanding, yes, Spotify is a peer-to-peer system but that in itself doesn't make it inherently more demanding on the network, if anything, it should lighten the load. The problem, of course, wasn't that it used p2p technology but, rather that the amount of people using it caused slow-downs.

The university goes on to say that because the service doesn't hold any educational value, it was deemed unnecessary and expandable. Oxford provides its students with free Internet but it can restrict access to sites and services that have no educational purpose. However, one first-year music student claims that he finds Spotify very valuable in his studies. “I use it loads. It’s the most comprehensive collection of classical music in one place. Much better than Naxos,” the student said.

For now, it doesn't look like the students have much of a case or a chance to get their Spotify privileges back, so they're left with having to pay for a dedicated Internet connection as the only option. Spotify has about 2 million users in the UK and its free, ad-supported service was likely appreciated by students who wouldn't otherwise afford to either buy all the music or subscribe to a paid music streaming service.