If that's the case, it's not what's discussed in this article. I don't think there are popular original songs being covered in this list of "background jazz" so

If that's the case, it's not what's discussed in this article. I don't think there are popular original songs being covered in this list of "background jazz" songs, and if they were, the originals were presumably not the same kind of moody muzak that the playlists are designed around. This is a "scam" in the same sense that the CDs of generic mellow coffeehouse music you could get at Starbucks were "scams".