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.

Comments

Only removed when "discovered"

[Quakeulf]

Makes me think Spotify was in on it too for one reason or the other. Probably to see what they can get away with.

Re:Only removed when "discovered"

[Narcocide]

If that had been what happened, there would be a press release, followed by a police investigation and report. The silent correction with no explanation suggests it was an inside job. Likely they caught their own staff doing this, and are embarrassed to publicly admit it.

Re:Only removed when "discovered"

[Vreejack]

More likely someone was scamming Spotify. Artists get paid per song play, not per minute of stream time, so a bunch of short songs can cost Spotify much more than otherwise. Someone figured out how to fake song plays by different users, probably by hacking the accounts of people with weak passwords and simply using them to play a lot of one-minute rubbish when the legitimate user was offline.