Why are you still on Spotify?
Between AI-generated crap and Ek investing in military strike drones, it might be time to cancel the subscription
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There’s also a negative side.”— Hunter S. Thompson
Daniel Ek is not a good man.
In 2017, Spotify started making in-house music and promoting it on its bigger playlists because they don’t have to pay out royalties on music they own.
Noting that they screw over musicians with their royalties is like saying water is wet. There are videos every year that come out from middle-class musicians who have the receipts.
Users are complaining about Spotify’s abysmal UI on Spotify’s own community boards. Most agree Spotify is giving people updates they don’t want, while making it harder to find the music they want to hear.
To be fair, all companies give people updates they don’t want, which is why Substack has gotten complaints as it makes the number one mistake of copying other successful platforms. Since it rolled out notes, it’s now trying to become yet another social media platform. And of course, helpful Substacks are appearing to show you just how to use Notes to grow your audience. There’s no need to link to them; If you spend any time on LinkedIn you already know.
Social media is changing music production too, with hits taking off based on TikTok trends. With the collective fruit fly attention span, people are responding to formulaic song structures designed to hook quickly. If people skip your song in the first 30 seconds, Spotify punishes you. Because you only get your fraction of a cent if people stick around for 31 seconds.
There's been a lot of talk around the 30 second rule over the past year or so, but the point stands that the first 30 seconds of a track matter to Spotify more than anything else.
If a listener gets past the 30 second mark of your track - that’s a positive bit of data. Plus, that’s the point at which a stream is monetized. This doesn't mean that you can just make an album full of 30 second long tracks though.
So they aren’t rewarding musicians, either through fair compensation or even allowing people to discover their music. What are they rewarding? AI-generated music. And AI-generated music from dead people.
404 Media uncovered the latter after a few songs from dead musicians showed up on the platform, including a “new” song from Blaze Foley who died 36 years ago. This wasn’t a Tupac situation with a lot of leftovers in the can. This was AI-generated without the estate’s permission.
Craig McDonald, the owner of Lost Art Records, the label that distributes all of Foley’s music and manages his Spotify page, told me that any Foley fan would instantly realize “Together” is not one of his songs.
“I can clearly tell you that this song is not Blaze, not anywhere near Blaze’s style, at all,” he told me on a call. “It’s kind of an AI schlock bot, if you will. It has nothing to do with the Blaze you know, that whole posting has the authenticity of an algorithm.”
As an artist who had his music on Spotify and Apple for a while, I understand the process of getting your music distributed. You need a third party to do so, especially if you are independent or unsigned. This isn’t ideal if you are looking to maximize profit but it is important because the metadata is the only way to track who the actual artist and label is, ensuring you get paid.
But according to The Verge… “this whole process effectively works on the honor system, and for something like the fake Standards album, this is where the problems begin. A distributor takes you at your word that you are who you say you are, Spotify takes the distributor at their word, and boom, there’s a fake album on a real artist’s page. Most of the time when this happens, it’s an honest mistake. In the recent spate of fakes, though, it seems like artists are directly targeted.”
People are bulk uploading AI songs in an effort to get on playlists that will help them get larger streams, and larger payouts.
Spotify invests heavily to minimize this. But “Andrew Batey, the CEO of Beatdapp, a company that aims to prevent streaming fraud….estimates that $2 billion to $3 billion is stolen from artists through this kind of fraud every year.”
Spotify is not only cannibalizing itself, but its destroying its brand reputation with fake songs and fake bands. This has been happening since at least 2017. Now that AI is in the hands of pretty much anyone, those instances have gone up exponentially. And there isn’t going to be any regulation any time soon, which is a shame because it is desperately needed. The only justice that happens is when someone gets caught.
In Denmark, a man was sentenced to 18 months in prison for creating bots to stream his music, earning him $290,000 in royalties on music services like Spotify and Apple Music.
America’s first case happened in September 2024 when a man got $10 million in royalties by fraudulently streaming AI-generated songs.
“FBI Acting Assistant Director Christie M. Curtis said: ‘Michael Smith allegedly produced hundreds of thousands of songs with artificial intelligence and utilized automatic features to repeatedly stream the music to generate unlawful royalties to the tune of $10 million. The defendant’s alleged scheme played upon the integrity of the music industry by a concerted attempt to circumvent the streaming platforms’ policies. The FBI remains dedicated to plucking out those who manipulate advanced technology to receive illicit profits and infringe on the genuine artistic talent of others.’”
According to Wired, “Fake or “artificial” streams are a big problem for the streaming industry. Between 1 billion and 3 billion fake streams took place on popular music platforms in 2021, according to a study by France’s National Music Center.”
While the rest of us are trying to craft an actual song, others are churning out slop and using tools to get fake streams and monetizing it.
Spotify says it is heavily investing in ways to combat this. You know what else Spotify heavily invests in? War. As music tech reports:
Earlier this year, Ek led a €600 million round of investment in Helsing, a German defence-tech company that develops AI software to enhance military weapons systems and other equipment. His involvement with Helsing has faced heavy criticism from artists and listeners alike, especially given Spotify’s long-standing tension with musicians over royalty payouts.
Xiu Xiu, Deer Hoof, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, and other artists have pulled their music in response.
Considering Spotify pays the least out of the streaming services, has horrible overall sound, and is actively limiting discoverability on its platform, musicians aren’t losing much in the long run.
However, if they are pulling their music from Spotify, they should also consider doing the same with YouTube/Google Play since the US Defense Department just awarded them a contract. Amazon also works with the Pentagon. Apple has also been a defense contractor in the past although it’s not clear if it still is. But if Apple joins up again, musicians will have few streaming options left.
It might seem counterintuitive that Ek and the like would ruin their brand platform when it risks offending so many artists. But in order to understand it, you have to understand the mindset of someone in Big Tech. There is no distinction between your music, AI-generated garbage, and surveillance drones. Data is data. They don’t care what it is, or where it comes from, provided it makes them money.