Spotify "fake artists"?

[Troy]

Very interesting article talks about how music is being tailored for certain streams. Music moving from art toward commerce is a trend has been occurring for decades now, but it seems to be moving to a "whole nutha level" (In Living Color reference there for anyone who remembers that show) these days:

www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2017/07/12/536670493/spotify-is-accused-of-creating-fake-artists-but-what-is-a-fake-artist

[Walking Contradiction]

I don't see how this is any worse than elevator music, karaoke versions, cheap party compilations, stock music, or "bands" created from studio musicians just to make a particular song.

[Au$tin]

Yeah, this is nothing wrong in my eyes. Spotify pays people to make music and as long as people are listening to it and enjoy it, there's nothing wrong with it.

[Naos]

Couldn't acts like say, Alvin & The Chipmunks, or any vocaloid like Hatsune Miku, or Nightcore all apply here? It's nothing new.

[Deleted]

fwiw i think the complaint was more about the theory that spotify is purposely squeezing 'real' artists out of streams by clogging up these playlists with session musicians who are likely getting paid a crappy flat rate. note that this isn't so much a problem for the rihannas and biebers at the top of the food chain who will get billions of streams regardless, but the smaller guys who would notice even a small boost from being track #39 on one of those lists, if only they weren't being being crowded out. i have no stance on it at the moment, but i think it comes down to a debate regarding what the purpose of these playlists are really supposed to be - if it's to discover new music (or more specifically, new artists whom you would like to follow and support), is this session-musicians approach really acceptable?

spotify trying to cut cost corners is perfectly understandable, but says more about how streaming (by itself) is just not a sustainable longterm business model as it currently functions. which sucks for me b/c spotify is my preferred streaming platform but i foresee myself eventually having to shift when it one day goes under.

spotify priced itself out of profitability from the get-go; i always said for what they were offering it should have been 25-30 a month, not a paltry 10. meanwhile companies like google amazon and apple were able to jump in the game at the same rate with no issue b/c they have other revenue streams to help them absorb costs. so now spotify can't go up on the fee without losing old subscribers/scaring off new ones.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Do movie studios object when the first thingame you see on Netflix or Amazon is their own content? Are self-publishers on Kindle "fake authors"?

[Devil Marlena Nylund]

If the intent is to recreate the original song to save money rather than to make that song appeal to a certain mood (a la elevator music), then yeah, I think I object. Especially when it's the exact same song.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Are randos singing acoustic covers on YouTube fake artists? YouTube is making ad money off their videos, no reason to suspect they aren't also boosting certain accounts in search resultd

[Deleted]

Someone singing an unnecesssary cover of Despacito is not at all like Spotify stuffing various playlists with unknown artists singing their own material. I'm not sure how or why that comparison even came about because it doesn't work for what the main complaint about Spotify's 'fake' artists is.

Nor does a self-published author throwing his book up on Kindle make sense as a comparison, unless the suggestion is that Kindle is choosing certain self-published authors to bump up on its new releases or recommended lists at the expense of other books.

The Netflix/Amazon example is the one that makes sense, but the catch there is that Netflix and Amazon are upfront about the fact that whatever they're pushing to you first is their own product, while Spotify (if it is indeed pushing these 'fake' artists) is steadfastly denying that it is doing this. If it's not anything to be ashamed of why is Spotify trying to hide it? It would actually be rather interesting to see if and how a "streaming record label" would work, but as of yet no streaming service is (openly) branching out into that area. Spotify's dodgy attitude about it makes it look like a worse action than it would seem otherwise - well, to those who are paying attention. FWIW, I don't think much of the public knows or cares about this.

[YourFaveIsAFlop]

Amazon does do that for book though. They regularly promotemail books published directly through Amazon, and those books are always priced lower than the books from real publishing houses. The average consumer is not away of who is publishing a book, just aso they could care less if a musician is being distributed by Warner or Sony or Spotify Records.

[Deleted]

^^^The fact remains that a) you know this information, and b) that Amazon apparently has no problem disclosing it, which then bumps it to the Netflix/Amazon movies category where the situation would be exactly the same if Spotify would just own up to what it is doing.

I'm re-reading the original article - not the NPR one, but the Music Business Worldwide article from 2016 that NPR cited - and this is clearly not a complaint that has anything to do with average consumer interests...MBW is at its core a trade publication, after all. The music industry has always been guilty of thinking consumers will care more about its 'how the sausage is made' issues than they actually will, but that doesn't make those issues any less real or valid to those with some stake in the sausage-making process.

The fact that the typical listener doesn't care - because I absolutely agree, this means next to nothing to you or me in terms of music enjoyment - makes it all the more mystifying, if not out right suspect, that Spotify won't own up to it. Is it that this flouts some of Spotify's contractual agreements? Is it one of those technically legal but morally shady business moves that would lose Spotify (even more) money if people found out and fled the platform in protest? Again, looking at the original article, I had forgotten this news first broke at the very time Spotify was renegotiating its contracts and disputing revenue share with the big three, plus getting called out from blackballing Katy Perry's Rise from its biggest playlists b/c it had a windowed exclusive period with Apple.

Right now Spotify, Apple Music, and Google Play have rights to more or less the same ~30 million songs. The last thing Spotify needs in its current yet-to-turn-a-profit state is finding itself with access to less songs than its biggest competitors have just b/c it got 'caught' and pissed off people enough to lose business.