The problem would be that the platform serving the music (and making recommendations of what to listen to) has a strong incentive to promote their own brand, cr

The problem would be that the platform serving the music (and making recommendations of what to listen to) has a strong incentive to promote their own brand, creating a competitive disadvantage for "real" musicians on the same platform. This is the music equivalent of Amazon Basics. If Spotify really is creating fake artists to avoid paying real artists, it's the same kind of monopolistic vertical integration as Amazon manufacturing their own products to avoid paying third-party sellers.