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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.
record companies did the same thing back in the day. top songs covered by unknown talent and sold as ALL the HITS on one ALBUM.
Maybe they're making typos in the artists' names.
The music corporations see it as a problem because they want everyone to pay them a fee every time a song is played, heard, recorded or experienced in any other way. If they could scan your brain and catch you remembering a song, they'd want a payment.
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.
Enno Aare seems like a real person to me.
Has anybody attempted to look him up on Youtube? Enno has three videos and he actively responds in the comments. He posted a link to the sheet music he created for Water Ripples.
After about a 20 minute search I've established that Enno Aare is a man of Estonian descent. I was unable to get a listing for the man in Estonia, so he could either be unlisted or lives abroad.
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.
Especially since all techno sounds the same anyway.
And if they bring in new, upcoming artists, that benefits everyone except the entrenched record labels. (boo-hoo)
>"Produce a bunch of garbage and hope people think its a positive."
Except that is NOT the Netflix Streaming model. They have actually produced a lot of great stuff (and later some mediocre too), and people DO think it is a positive. In fact, their own productions probably account for the majority of attracting and retaining their subscribers. Even their mediocre stuff is better than perhaps 90% of what is on traditional network TV.
What they don't have a lot of is Hollywood movies. For that, you still have to revert back to Netflix DVD. It would be nicer if they offered both, but apparently they can't AND retain the low price.
Did the music deliver what people want? If so, good. If not, they'll switch to something else. Who gives a fuck who made it? Do I care what carpenter made my table? What I care is whether the legs are equal in length and the surface is flat but not for the name of its maker.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
Misrepresenting it? It's just an artist name (a lot of which are pseudonyms for "real" artists, anyway) and a track title, and a piece of music that is non-offensive and decent enough for background listening. What's so wrong about that?
Eat the rich.
Why does that really really suck? 95% of the other occupations on the planet work that way. Most programmers don't own the rights to their work. Manual laborers don't. Financial analysts don't.
There's imaginary damage done to the music cartel.
Requiem for the American Dream
Just think of the poor, hand-to-mouth, hard working middle men such as record companies and their industry representatives (RIAA, BPI, etc). How are they gonna afford five-star food and lodgings and to pay off governments unless Spotify burns to the ground in a mountain of debt?
Not helping the entitled is really about the worst thing anyone can do, and $deity knows it. I strongly recommend you start only 'consuming' music from approved providers. Choice is not a virtue.
Like every band during the sixties?
Seriously, that movie was a revelation to me about how the music industry has ALWAYS worked. There are literally dozens of bands from that time period that were, in reality, all putting out albums played by the same small crew of session dudes, just sometimes swapping in the lead vocalists from their actual band.
That pretty much holds for anything outside of hard rock to this day. A "distributor" being the ones to hire the session dudes and gals instead of a "label" really isn't that far fetched. Why not get a bigger piece of the pie if the music is that simple to create?
I'm just trying to understand why this is a legal issue. If the music exists, someone created it. Just because some label isn't getting a cut doesn't mean it's illegal. It just means someone found a way around the stranglehold the labels have on the industry. Again.
whatever one-time payment got them into the studio; well, really, really, sucks to be an artist in that genre.
Not really. That's how most of us work. Get paid for the time spent in the studio/office/shop/warehouse, get fuck all afterwards.
The anomaly is the current fucked up copyright situation where people keep getting paid for something they did 70 years before they fucking died. How the fuck that benefits society hasn't been explained.
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.
Nonsense.
There's nothing at all "sucky" about working in a field where you can get a decent day's pay for a day's work, and do it steadily. What sucks is the rest of the music industry, where artists have a miniscule chance of becoming ludicrously wealthy and (1 - miniscule) probability of starving for years reaching for a golden ring that they'll never achieve.
It's a poorly-kept secret in the LA music scene that one of the best jobs you can get is as a session musician that is regularly hired by labels to back up their "names", or to sweeten recorded tracks. They don't have five houses with gold-plated toilet seats, but they make a very comfortable living working two to three days per week making music which is heard by millions. Sure, their names are in small print on dustcovers (if at all), but they have great lives doing what they love. I met a few of these guys when I contracted for UMG and they were very happy that they got paid on a strict fee for service basis rather than being at the mercy of royalties and recoupments. Many of them had been asked to join various bands they've backed up, and refused.
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Piqued.
http://www.acetonestudio.com