Spotify has vowed to go after users who run hacked versions of its hugely-successful music streaming service to remove the restrictions that come with free accounts.
Users who do not pay for Spotify are unable listen to music offline, stream on-demand from a mobile device, and travel abroad with their music for more than a fortnight.
Spotify subscribers on the free plan will also hear adverts in-between tracks.
These restrictions are removed when Spotify users move to a paid plan, dubbed Spotify Premium, which costs £9.99 a month.
However, some users have purportedly found ways to remove the restrictions imposed by the free account without paying for Spotify Premium.
According to technology blog The Verge, websites offer downloads of doctored Spotify installation files that make free accounts act like Premium accounts.
As a result, users only need to register for a free account, download the modified version from the web, and enter their credentials to enjoy ad-free music, and unlimited skips.
The hack doesn’t actually change the free account to Premium status, so some features are still locked like, for example, higher-quality streaming.
It’s unclear how common this hack has become – and how much of an issues it’s causing Spotify as a company.
But as the music streaming firm is gearing-up to go public, it’s clearly something it wants to address.
According to piracy blog TorrentFreak, Spotify has been sending out emails over the past few days to those with these hacked free accounts.
The company is informing users that it has “detected abnormal activity on the app” and disabled their account.
The hacked accounts are not deleted outright, meaning users can still reactivate when they have uninstall the illicit software and downloaded the official Spotify app again.
Spotify boasts 159 million users across the globe, with 71 million of those accounts paying the monthly subscription fee.