It's a lot more like the fraud attempted in Office Space (... and Superman 3). Spotify artist payments are not based on play counts directly. They are actually

It's a lot more like the fraud attempted in Office Space (... and Superman 3). Spotify artist payments are not based on play counts directly. They are actually based on Spotify's total revenue and the proportion of global Spotify streams that the artist received. As a result of these extra plays, Vulpeck's stream rate increases, but Spotify gets virtually no extra revenue (especially since a user would have to be a premium subscriber to get a fully quiet experience listening to the album). Vulpeck gets paid a bit more, and everyone else gets paid a minuscule amount less. For reference, here's one article that mentions this model of how Spotify pays its artists: https://qz.com/1660465/the-way-spotify-and-apple-music-pays-artists-isnt-fair/ https://qz.com/1660465/the-way-spotify-and-apple-music-pays-...