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Spotify Denies Allegations It's Putting Fake Artists On Popular Playlists To Cut Costs (factmag.com)
Last year, music industry publication Music Business Worldwide (MBW) claimed Spotify was putting fake artists in some of its popular playlists. The publication listed 50 artists it claimed were not real. Why would they do such a thing? To keep royalty costs down. MBW claimed that Spotify "was asking producers to create music to specification and paying them a flat fee to own the track outright," reports FACT Magazine. "These tracks -- which MBW alleged were being used to bulk up numbers on ambient, chillout and piano playlists -- are said to be owned by Spotify so that the company could circumvent royalty payments on playlists that have millions of subscribers." From the report: The claims were brought to wider attention by a feature published by Vulture last week, which picked out acts called Deep Watch and Enno Aare as examples of "fake artists" that had racked up two million and 15 million streams despite having no public profile. In a statement given to Billboard last week, Spotify refuted the allegations made by both MBW and Vulture. "We do not and have never created 'fake' artists and put them on Spotify playlists," the company said. "Categorically untrue, full stop. We pay royalties -- sound and publishing -- for all tracks on Spotify, and for everything we playlist. We do not own rights, we're not a label, all our music is licensed from rightsholders and we pay them -- we don't pay ourselves. We do not own this content -- we license it and pay royalties just like we do on every other track." In a piece published yesterday, MBW challenged Spotify's statement, citing anonymous sources in the music business who claimed that the practice has been going on for a "long time."
If the listener cannot tell the difference between a track from a well-known artist and a track from a knock-off artist, then it's all good. It sounds like this was being done on playlists where the tracks are all ambient or instrumental anyway. If they tried to copy the vocals of a popular song, I bet they would have a lot more trouble keeping it secret.
Yep... I listen to ambient music when I'm coding (Though Pandora, not Spotify). That said, if it's good enough to code to, why should I care if it's an in-house label? So long as it's not pirated, why should I give a flying **** if the legal agreement behind the scenes is pay-per-play or lump-commission?
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
I suspect that your sentiment may have something to do with why they are so particularly displeased by the idea:
If Spotify is just doing something dubiously legal; Team RIAA can sue them into a smoking crater and call it a day; it'd hardly be the first time that has happened.
If there are genres where some adequately competent musicians banging together a work for hire are considered by listeners to be an acceptable substitute for "real" artists; and can be used for 95 years for whatever one-time payment got them into the studio; well, really, really, sucks to be an artist in that genre.
Fake artists in playlists? Well, where are the screen shots? Or doesn't Spotify show clearly what is playing when?
I skimmed the first link in TFA which supposedly was an earlier article about the same issue, and it didn't show any screen shots or any other form of evidence other than some vague allegations. For now I have to put this in the "fake news" corner.
The thing is that even if this is true there is no knock-off artist involved. If someone or someones made the music (and it have to be made) they are artists making music even if they aren't well known.
The idea that this would be a problem or that one have to be well known with a single artist/act name to be real is ludicrous and not common even in "mainstream" music production. There are many songwriters that aren't known to the world and sometimes not even credited at all (with the music instead claimed to be written by some other artist). Are they fake? Nope.
This is just childish anti-spotify propaganda.