Spotify accused of creating fake musicians

In the popular striming service, no one-famous artists with millions of auditions appeared

One of the most popular musical streaming services Spotify accused of creating fake musicians-artists who actually do not exist outside the service. Their songs are often found in curatorial playlists, millions of users listen to them, but it is impossible to learn about them: they do not have profiles in social networks, musical publications do not write about them. The musical press suggested that Spotify thus evades copyright deductions.

Spotify is one of the most popular streaming services in the world, more than 140 million people use it; Unlike competitors, he has a free version with advertising between the tracks. Before Apple Music, the Swedish service was the main player in the market with the largest library of music. Spotify several times announced the start of work in Russia, but launched the launch due to political risks.

Spotify has a lot of problems: advertising does not bring enough profit, in 2016, the company, with revenue of $ 3 billion, showed a loss of about 500 million. The service is criticized for low payments (Spotify pays to musicians about half a center for listening to one track, Apple Music - about 0.7 cents); Some artists, including Taylor Swift, even announced a boycott to the Swedish project due to disadvantageous conditions. Swift said that streaming services are harmful to sales of albums and depreciate the work of musicians.

Like other similar services, Spotify has curatoric playlists, divided by genres, moods, types of leisure and sports for which they are intended. These playlists are gathered by the Spotify musical editors based on internal service statistics. In early July, the Vulture publication drew attention to the fact that in these playlists you can often find completely unfamiliar names. Deep Watch, Enno Aarem, Charles Bolt, Evelyn Stein - they have tens of millions of auditions, but they don’t know anything outside the playlists: neither Facebook profiles, nor mention in musical publications.

The Vulture made an obvious assumption - Spotify buys rights to songs of unknown artists and puts them in his own playlists with names like Ambient Chill, so as not to pay copyright deductions (royalties). Deductions - the main article of expenses of any streaming, Spotify is no exception.

Music Business Worldwide Musical Blog suggested that fake artists promoted by Spotify are almost free and can save on payments. The blog suggested that, perhaps, the service does not possess all the rights to these compositions, but agreed on reduced royalties, and therefore promotes them. Music Business Worldwide counted more than 50 such suspicious musicians.

Spotify said that they did not do anything like that. “We do not create and never created“ fake artists ”and did not put them in playlists. This is complete untruth. We do not own the rights to any songs, we are not a musical label. All music is licensed by the copyright holders, and we pay royalties for all songs in Spotify, ” said Spotify.

According to The Verge, these mysterious artists are independent musicians who produce music under pseudonyms. One of them, Fank-musician Andreas Eilman, is produced by instrumental compositions under fictional male and female pseudonyms; The other, the teacher of the piano Magnuz Folk (in his profile on SoundCloud, dozens of poppes are added), releases instrumental music under four pseudonyms.

Several authors of suspicious songs talked with The Verge on anonymity. One of them explained that he did not play alive, and therefore does not see the point of releasing music under the same name; Several pseudonyms allows him to create instrumental music in different genres. “I don’t know anyone in Spotify, but I was lucky that my music was added to several playlists,” another musician said. According to The Verge, the striming service sometimes addresses small independent labels with spot queries for songs, but it is not known under what conditions they are concluded by contracts

In addition to independent musicians, Spotify players found the music of the Swedish label Epidemic Sound. He has the same investor as Spotify. The label specializes in the sale of tracks for video, advertising and other needs. His website states that the label provides music free from royalty. For Spotify, an exception is made: Epidemic Sound composers still receive deductions.

According to The Verge, Spotify really includes unknown artists in popular playlists who can supply small labels and companies such as the Epidemic Sound. The publication did not find evidence that Spotify does this for a reduction in payments. The Verge calculated that Spotify paid 50 suspicious musicians about $ 3 million - not such a large amount for a 3 billion revenue service.

Pavel Borisov