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The Mystery Tracks Being 'Forced' on Spotify Users (musicbusinessworldwide.com)
It's been nearly two years since news blog MusicBusinessWorld kicked off a global conversation over 'fake artists' on Spotify. That debate is about to roar back into life. From a report: Multiple Spotify users have been complaining that their official listening history on Spotify appears to have been infiltrated by acts that they don't simply recognize. The trend was spotted by the BBC, which reported on Friday that plays of 'mystery' tracks from artists such as Bergenulo Five, Bratte Night, DJ Bruej and Doublin Night were being credited within individual Spotify user accounts -- despite these same users knowing nothing about this music.
"Apart from being musically unremarkable, they generally have a few things in common: short songs with few or no lyrics, illustrated with generic cover art, and short, non-descriptive song titles," said the Beeb of these acts -- some of whom had managed to rack up tens of thousands of plays. Albums from these artists contained more than 40 songs apiece, with each track just a minute or two in duration. After the BBC alerted Spotify to the trend, all of these artists disappeared from its platform entirely.
"Apart from being musically unremarkable, they generally have a few things in common: short songs with few or no lyrics, illustrated with generic cover art, and short, non-descriptive song titles," said the Beeb of these acts -- some of whom had managed to rack up tens of thousands of plays. Albums from these artists contained more than 40 songs apiece, with each track just a minute or two in duration. After the BBC alerted Spotify to the trend, all of these artists disappeared from its platform entirely.
My favorite band on Spotify is Various Artists (or maybe it's The Various Artists). They rock. Versatile, too.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Makes me think Spotify was in on it too for one reason or the other. Probably to see what they can get away with.
"Apart from being musically unremarkable, they generally have a few things in common: short songs with few or no lyrics, illustrated with generic cover art, and short, non-descriptive song titles," said the Beeb of these acts -- some of whom had managed to rack up tens of thousands of plays.
Are they quoting Justin Bieber here?
#DeleteChrome
Why do people put up with shite like this?! I decide what i'm listening to, the time where a radio station could pull something like this is long over.
Film at 11
Buy MP3s (or rip CDs) of just the music you like, store it locally on your PC and Mobile device, and only listen to those tracks.
That the same industry that brought us such hits as "Payola" and "Cleans" would do something shady for an encore?
Someone was gaming the system for profit. Inside job? Thanks, I will let myself out.
... an SQL NULL handling problem...?
It depends on spelling. "The Beeb" is British Broadcasting Corporation, whereas "the Bieb" is Justin Bieber.
This sounds like the technique GPS map makers use to "watermark" their maps. They will add nonexistent features, and then can use those to see when someone simply copies their maps. For instance, I live near a large national park and my GPS claims there is a lake out there in the middle which never existed. perhaps Spotify is doing something similar with these ghost artists.
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> After the BBC alerted Spotify to the trend, all of these artists disappeared from its platform entirely.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I'm not against the idea of having tunes that are not tied to a particular artist (for whatever reason). There's no reason to force the association.
However, to group bunches of tune under a single (fake) artist and treat it like a real artist is misleading to the consumer and is a practice that encourages rigging the system to gain more listeners by creating (fake) mega artists.
If they are "anonymous collections", then clearly label them as such so the consumer knows what they are looking at.
Table-ized A.I.
Dirty Dirty Spotify, reducing the number of plays of expensive songs and increasing the number of plays of cheap songs, so they can pay a smaller bill the the music industry.
for those unfamiliar with that age-old scam...
It'd be kinda cool if it had been a machine-generation experiment.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Sign me up for the Milli Vanilli channel!
Totes the future of music!
For the curious, the songs/artists are still available in other places like deezer: https://www.deezer.com/us/albu...
If they're dumb it's because YOU are dumb. It was YOUR generation's responsibility to teach them. YOU FAILED.