This is a very interesting article shared by a chum on Facebook the other day. A clever idea, well executed. Slightly put me off wasting my time trying to win money on HQ Trivia, anyway…
Spotify Scammed!
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I was wondering whether this would work from the moment Spotify was made: ie the costs of a memberships vs potential income from royalties. Clearly it does. Can’t shed too many tears for the green dot, as it’s not satisfactorily answered the queries about its own curated playlists like ‘chilled piano’ or ‘relaxing tuba’ being stuffed full of library fake artists commissioned by Spotify ,enabling Spotify to promote these playlists and pay royalties to itself.
They didn’t factor in electricity and data costs (with bitmining scams the biggest cost I gather) and hardware, but even so it’s well worth it.
Fascinating article. There are some ingenious scoundrels out there in cyberspace.
What really worries me is that those nefarious Bulgarians or others of their ilk could be using similar dirty tricks to nobble the result of Eurovision. Civilisation as we know it is in peril!
Spotify con the artists out of royalties, that they have been conned by those Bloody Bulgars is divine justice.
In what way does Spotify ‘con the artists out of royalties’?
Very, very, very low royalties per song played x frequency.
That’s an answer to a different question.
How is it a ‘con’?
I have no interest in Spotify, other than being a subscriber, I’m just curious why you call it a con.
See above.
Interesting in the comments on that article. Someone queried whether the major music rights holders were doing a bit of this themselves.
Wouldn’t exactly be hard for the likes of Sony/BMG or Universal, with their resources, to set up a load of Spotty accounts and ‘bots, churning out plays of their artists music.
A digital alternative to Payola, fully automated and almost impossible to trace if done with care.
There is a kind of poetry in this scam. I can’t help but be impressed.
‘Ave an ^
Dodgy memory n stuff but didn’t some band (Nordic metal?) twig to this in the early days of Spotify and “release” an album that consisted only of 30 seconds of silence. They then got their fans to play this on repeat overnight to raise money for a proper album?
Wm Gibson: the Street finds its own use for things
That was Sleepify by Vulfpeck, who far from being a Nordic metal band are an American funk band – rather good too. Here they are a few months ago in Dublin – not often you hear an entire audience singing a bass solo!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleepify
This site actually has a pic of the notorious Bulgarian Playlist. The artists are all utterly unknown.
http://ajournalofmusicalthings.com/exactly-bulgarian-spotify-scam-industry-talking/
That is brilliant. Love it.
This story has Hollywood Script all over it.