July 14th 2011 marks the day when Spotify made its way across the Atlantic and set up shop in the United States. Now, as users hit their six-month anniversary of signing up with the service, they'll have some restrictions placed on their free accounts. Unless you pony up for either the $4.99 or $9.99 per month premium plans, you'll be limited to ten hours of music playback each month, and you'll only get to listen to a particular song five times during that time period.

This was all rather inevitable — when Spotify first came to the US the company said in its terms of service (and elsewhere) that users would have unlimited streaming for only six months after signing up and, well, that's precisely what's happening. The good news is that new users will still get six months to enjoy free unlimited streaming. Just so you know, it's no better back in Europe either — free accounts there have had the exact same restrictions since last year. The only question now is will you go for the $4.99 plan that offers unlimited streaming, the $9.99 plan that includes higher audio quality and the mobile app, or will you take your ears elsewhere?