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I believe if you go down the rabbit hole of "mood playlists" and spotify created playlists, then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royaltie

I believe if you go down the rabbit hole of "mood playlists" and spotify created playlists, then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for and that could probably include AI generated music. If you are explictitly looking for music by specific artists, then you get their music obviously.

troupo 9mo ago
> then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for I love this conspiracy theory. Which track doesn't Spotify pay royalties for? Considering that it licenses 100% of its music from external distributors.
- butlike 9mo ago
  It's not really a conspiracy theory. YouTube users can use royalty-free music, it stands to reason Spotify would have the same (potentially internally) to decrease costs. "Why pay royalties if it's just going to be BGM for a massage parlor?" could be their reasoning.
  - fortran77 9mo ago
    I only go to massage parlors that display their ASCAP or BMI license in the window. I wouldn't be happy getting an ending if some musician is being ripped off.
- autoexec 9mo ago
  I'm not saying they are doing it now, but what's stopping them from generating their own tracks? What's to stop them from creating some bullshit company to generate AI slop and then licensing music from themselves at fractions of what they'd pay a real artist just to keep up the illusion so that real artists don't leave their platform? If a corporation can do something that will make them more money than they'd make not doing it you should expect them to do the profitable thing. Corporations don't care about ethics or even the law. Maximizing shareholder value is their purpose. They exist only to take from the many and give to the few. It's not a conspiracy theory to assume that they'll be doing exactly what they are designed to do.
  - troupo 9mo ago
    > I'm not saying they are doing it now, but what's stopping them from generating their own tracks? What's to stop them from creating When they do that, let's talk. But that's not what I asked, is it?
- rpdillon 9mo ago
  > The program, according to Pelly’s reporting in Harper’s Magazine, is designed to embed low-cost, royalty-free tracks into Spotify’s most popular mood- and activity-based playlists. Produced by a network of “ghost artists” operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly. https://edm.com/news/spotify-using-ghost-artists-minimize-royalty-payouts-report/ https://edm.com/news/spotify-using-ghost-artists-minimize-ro...
  - troupo 9mo ago
    > operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly. As I already wrote elsewhere, no one, including the article's own authors, understood a single thing from the article. Spotify doesn't produce its own music. It licenses 100% of its music from external distributors. Apart from a few scammy companies there are dozens of companies whose entire repertoire and catalog is ambient/background/noise/elevator/shopping mall music etc. that they commission from ghost composers. There is literally money being paid to distributors for these tracks. To quote the original article you didn't even read, this one: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/ https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin... --- start quote --- Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty. --- end quote --- Wait, what about "no royalties" crap? Oh, all of that is just "per Pelly". Though I'll admit that there are probably companies that license music for a flat fee (though I assume those would be rare). Also note: Spotify doesn't pay artists. Spotify doesn't have direct contracts with artists. Spotify pays distributors and rights holders. And then those, in turn, pay royalties based on their contracts with artists. (According to one of the ghost artists interviewed, he is paid significantly more than he would be if he was trying to release music himself, BTW).
    - mlrtime 9mo ago
      >Spotify doesn't pay artists. So Indiy artists can't directly put their music on Spotify? Sorry I have no idea how this works, I guess that's the point of Bandcamp?
- parpfish 9mo ago
  Internally, they refer to it as “perfect fit content” (pfc). It used to just be stuff like white noise and rain sounds, but it has expanded to essentially be a modern Muzak replacement. For situations when people don really want “music” and just need “contextually appropriate aesthetically pleasing sound”
  - JohnFen 9mo ago
    That makes all the sense in the world to me. I'd call that an entirely legitimate use for AI generated music.
    - mattkevan 9mo ago
      The barbers I went to recently were playing a channel on the TV which was an endless series of clips panning through ultra-nostalgic French Riviera-style scenery, accompanied by mellow guitar music. Seemed fine at first glance but like all AI stuff it got weirder the closer you looked - boats on land, outdoor dining areas underwater, giant lanterns larger than houses, mangled looking food, that sort of thing. Someone had clearly just set up a few prompts and let the AI get on with it, creating probably hundreds of channels of this stuff.
    - vintermann 9mo ago
      Sure, as "content". But unless these tracks are treated differently in Spotify's payout system, they're extremely profitable, and because payments come from a common pool, they hoover up payments which would otherwise have gone to artists people actually like.
- miki123211 9mo ago
  There are artists that Spotify has different deals with. Spotify promotes their music in their playlists, but the artists get a much smaller cut of the profits in exchange. Win-win for everybody. This only happens in genres where most listeners don't care about the artists they're listening to, think "chillout", "focus" or "easy listening." That kind of music is a commodity, Taylor Swift (or Metallica or Mozzart or whatever) is not. This has been proven. My hypothesis is that those genres would otherwise lose Spotify the most money, as people often play that kind of music and never turn it off. Because Spotify pays per listen, the user who attentively listens to their favorite artist a few times a week is much better for them than somebody who has "chillout" playing on their echo 24/7.
  - troupo 9mo ago
    > There are artists that Spotify has different deals with. Spotify doesn't have deals with artists because Spotify doesn't have direct contract with artists. Only with distributors. > My hypothesis is that those genres would otherwise lose Spotify the most money, How would they "lose Spotify money", and how is this different from top artists on Spotify?
    - germinalphrase 9mo ago
      You can’t substitute Taylor Swift, but you may be able to substitute generic synthwave (or whatever people play for general ambiance).
      - troupo 9mo ago
        I have no idea what this is in response to :)
- ivarv 9mo ago
  Spotify hires musicians to churn out content that fits certain criteria. see https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/ https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
  - troupo 9mo ago
    Spotify doesn't hire any artists because if it did, major labels would immediately pull their contracts. No one actually understands what's written in this article, including the authors themselves. Also note how you didn't provide a single track that Spotify allegedly pays no royalties for.
    - james_marks 9mo ago
      You’re missing the concept of session musicians that can improvise for hours. No license, flat fee.
      - troupo 9mo ago
        Again. Spotify doesn't pay musicians directly. Spotify pays distirbutors and rights holders. Literally in the very article everyone links to but is incapable of reading there's even this text: --- start quote --- Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty. --- end quote ---
    - vintermann 9mo ago
      The major labels own a good chunk of Spotify directly. Used to be even more. As long as they get their cut they'll jump on any opportunity to screw over their artists (yes I know "unsourced statement" blah blah, sit down lawyers. I won't explain the reasons for my low opinion of these companies right now.) The allegation is that Spotify pays out to entities which are ultimately owned by themselves, or that they get kickbacks in other ways like ad purchases (probably illegal, but hard to prove if you're at all clever about it). I remember I found a track a few years ago, by the artist Mayhem. No, not the metal band. The background music artist Mayhem. Which only ever released two tracks. One of which, "Solitude Hymns", happened to get featured in one of Spotify's playlists, and managed to rack up more plays than any track by the more famous metal band at the time. They haven't scrubbed it. Just look it up.
- vintermann 9mo ago
  Yet another person who plays the bogeyman card of "conspiracy theory" when what is described is garden variety corruption, only takes a trivial amount of secret coordination in a group smaller than your average terrorist cell, and could probably even be defended as legal with a small legal team (Spotify probably has a big one). There are a billion ways you could cash in on this. A dead easy one is "music written for hire by a company you own". Even if Spotify is not doing the slightest thing like this, suggesting that they might is not a conspiracy theory. Quit trying to tar every proposed view of the world you disagree with with that label. You're just making it easier for the actual grand conspiracy theorists.
  - troupo 9mo ago
    > Yet another person who plays the bogeyman card of "conspiracy theory" > Even if Spotify is not doing the slightest thing like this, suggesting that they might is... ...textbook definition of conspiracy theory Also note how your entire text is just unsubstantiated claims. Including emotionally charged words like "terrorist cell" that give your words so much weight and meaning.
    - vintermann 9mo ago
      Your "textbook definition" is BS. A theory that someone conspires is not enough to call something a conspiracy theory. You would not call a prosecutor who accuses someone of "criminal conspiracy" a conspiracy theorist, even though they have a theory that someone is conspiring. A terrorist cell is just another example of a real type of group which obviously conspires. You're not a conspiracy theorist for believing they exist. Conspiracy theorists is something we call people who believe in a grand conspiracy, one which, had it been real, would have required superhuman levels of coordination and secrecy. That's the brush you for some mysterious reason want to tar critics of Spotify with. And for the second time this week, someone demands "evidence" for expressions of distrust.
      - troupo 9mo ago
        > And for the second time this week, someone demands "evidence" for expressions of distrust. Funny then that to illustrate your point you use this example: "You would not call a prosecutor who accuses someone of 'criminal conspiracy' a conspiracy theorist". You know what separates criminal prosecutors from conspiracy theorists? They have to provide evidence. Or this example: "A terrorist cell is just another example of a real type of group which obviously conspires. You're not a conspiracy theorist for believing they exist." Yes, because we have evidence that they exist. See how this works? A theory with no supporting evidence is a crackpot theory. For example, I can say anything I want about you. When asked about evidence, I can lapse into demagoguery about terrorist cells or something. Perhaps you are a part of a terrorist cell? Otherwise, why bring them into discussion?
- james_marks 9mo ago
  Not a conspiracy theory. Spotify hires session musicians (pre-AI) to pay a flat fee for hours of background music. Since many high volume Spotify users just want “something jazzy” in the background, it helps them reduce royalties.
  - troupo 9mo ago
    > Spotify hires session musicians (pre-AI) to pay a flat fee for hours of background music. Spotify doesn't do it because Spotify doesn't produce music and doesn't have direct contracts with musicians. > Since many high volume Spotify users just want “something jazzy” in the background, it helps them reduce royalties. How does it help them reduce royalties when they don't produce their own music and license 100% of their music from distributors and rights holders?
    - iamacyborg 9mo ago
      You're being unnecesarily pedantic. They might not hire the musicians directly but if they're hiring an agency to do that, it's effetively the same thing. Ultimately they're trying to get generic music for cheap to reduce royalty payments to artists.
      - troupo 9mo ago
        > Ultimately they're trying to get generic music for cheap to reduce royalty payments to artists. 1. Spotify doesn't pay artists. Spotify doesn't have direct contracts with artists. Spotify pays rights holder and distributors. I really wish people who have strong opinions on music industry learned at least the absolute bare minimum about the subject. 2. Again, bringing back to my original comment: where's the evidence for that? E.g. the one and only article everyone links [1] and doesn't bother to understand literally has statements like this: --- start quote --- But at the end of the day, [the ghost musician] said, it was still a paycheck: “I did it because I needed a job real bad and the money was better than any money I could make from even successful indie labels, many of which I worked with,” he told me. ... Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty. --- end quote --- That doesn't mesh well with the narrative of "Spotify bad, doesn't pay royalties, etc.", does it? [1] https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/ https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
Mistletoe 9mo ago
Is there a good way to know if what you are listening to is AI? I listen to a lot of outrun and synthwave type stuff and it isn’t as easy as googling the artist’s name, a lot of it is made by artists that don’t tour and are quite small etc.
- jrflowers 9mo ago
  The best guide by far for identifying AI generated music is on Newgrounds, of all places. https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/site-moderation/how-to-detect-ai-audio https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/site-modera...

troupo 9mo ago

> then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for I love this conspiracy theory. Which track doesn't Spotify pay royalties for? Considering that it licenses 100% of its music from external distributors.

butlike 9mo ago
It's not really a conspiracy theory. YouTube users can use royalty-free music, it stands to reason Spotify would have the same (potentially internally) to decrease costs. "Why pay royalties if it's just going to be BGM for a massage parlor?" could be their reasoning.
- fortran77 9mo ago
  I only go to massage parlors that display their ASCAP or BMI license in the window. I wouldn't be happy getting an ending if some musician is being ripped off.
autoexec 9mo ago
I'm not saying they are doing it now, but what's stopping them from generating their own tracks? What's to stop them from creating some bullshit company to generate AI slop and then licensing music from themselves at fractions of what they'd pay a real artist just to keep up the illusion so that real artists don't leave their platform? If a corporation can do something that will make them more money than they'd make not doing it you should expect them to do the profitable thing. Corporations don't care about ethics or even the law. Maximizing shareholder value is their purpose. They exist only to take from the many and give to the few. It's not a conspiracy theory to assume that they'll be doing exactly what they are designed to do.
- troupo 9mo ago
  > I'm not saying they are doing it now, but what's stopping them from generating their own tracks? What's to stop them from creating When they do that, let's talk. But that's not what I asked, is it?
rpdillon 9mo ago
> The program, according to Pelly’s reporting in Harper’s Magazine, is designed to embed low-cost, royalty-free tracks into Spotify’s most popular mood- and activity-based playlists. Produced by a network of “ghost artists” operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly. https://edm.com/news/spotify-using-ghost-artists-minimize-royalty-payouts-report/ https://edm.com/news/spotify-using-ghost-artists-minimize-ro...
- troupo 9mo ago
  > operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly. As I already wrote elsewhere, no one, including the article's own authors, understood a single thing from the article. Spotify doesn't produce its own music. It licenses 100% of its music from external distributors. Apart from a few scammy companies there are dozens of companies whose entire repertoire and catalog is ambient/background/noise/elevator/shopping mall music etc. that they commission from ghost composers. There is literally money being paid to distributors for these tracks. To quote the original article you didn't even read, this one: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/ https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin... --- start quote --- Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty. --- end quote --- Wait, what about "no royalties" crap? Oh, all of that is just "per Pelly". Though I'll admit that there are probably companies that license music for a flat fee (though I assume those would be rare). Also note: Spotify doesn't pay artists. Spotify doesn't have direct contracts with artists. Spotify pays distributors and rights holders. And then those, in turn, pay royalties based on their contracts with artists. (According to one of the ghost artists interviewed, he is paid significantly more than he would be if he was trying to release music himself, BTW).
  - mlrtime 9mo ago
    >Spotify doesn't pay artists. So Indiy artists can't directly put their music on Spotify? Sorry I have no idea how this works, I guess that's the point of Bandcamp?
parpfish 9mo ago
Internally, they refer to it as “perfect fit content” (pfc). It used to just be stuff like white noise and rain sounds, but it has expanded to essentially be a modern Muzak replacement. For situations when people don really want “music” and just need “contextually appropriate aesthetically pleasing sound”
- JohnFen 9mo ago
  That makes all the sense in the world to me. I'd call that an entirely legitimate use for AI generated music.
  - mattkevan 9mo ago
    The barbers I went to recently were playing a channel on the TV which was an endless series of clips panning through ultra-nostalgic French Riviera-style scenery, accompanied by mellow guitar music. Seemed fine at first glance but like all AI stuff it got weirder the closer you looked - boats on land, outdoor dining areas underwater, giant lanterns larger than houses, mangled looking food, that sort of thing. Someone had clearly just set up a few prompts and let the AI get on with it, creating probably hundreds of channels of this stuff.
  - vintermann 9mo ago
    Sure, as "content". But unless these tracks are treated differently in Spotify's payout system, they're extremely profitable, and because payments come from a common pool, they hoover up payments which would otherwise have gone to artists people actually like.
miki123211 9mo ago
There are artists that Spotify has different deals with. Spotify promotes their music in their playlists, but the artists get a much smaller cut of the profits in exchange. Win-win for everybody. This only happens in genres where most listeners don't care about the artists they're listening to, think "chillout", "focus" or "easy listening." That kind of music is a commodity, Taylor Swift (or Metallica or Mozzart or whatever) is not. This has been proven. My hypothesis is that those genres would otherwise lose Spotify the most money, as people often play that kind of music and never turn it off. Because Spotify pays per listen, the user who attentively listens to their favorite artist a few times a week is much better for them than somebody who has "chillout" playing on their echo 24/7.
- troupo 9mo ago
  > There are artists that Spotify has different deals with. Spotify doesn't have deals with artists because Spotify doesn't have direct contract with artists. Only with distributors. > My hypothesis is that those genres would otherwise lose Spotify the most money, How would they "lose Spotify money", and how is this different from top artists on Spotify?
  - germinalphrase 9mo ago
    You can’t substitute Taylor Swift, but you may be able to substitute generic synthwave (or whatever people play for general ambiance).
    - troupo 9mo ago
      I have no idea what this is in response to :)
ivarv 9mo ago
Spotify hires musicians to churn out content that fits certain criteria. see https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/ https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
- troupo 9mo ago
  Spotify doesn't hire any artists because if it did, major labels would immediately pull their contracts. No one actually understands what's written in this article, including the authors themselves. Also note how you didn't provide a single track that Spotify allegedly pays no royalties for.
  - james_marks 9mo ago
    You’re missing the concept of session musicians that can improvise for hours. No license, flat fee.
    - troupo 9mo ago
      Again. Spotify doesn't pay musicians directly. Spotify pays distirbutors and rights holders. Literally in the very article everyone links to but is incapable of reading there's even this text: --- start quote --- Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty. --- end quote ---
  - vintermann 9mo ago
    The major labels own a good chunk of Spotify directly. Used to be even more. As long as they get their cut they'll jump on any opportunity to screw over their artists (yes I know "unsourced statement" blah blah, sit down lawyers. I won't explain the reasons for my low opinion of these companies right now.) The allegation is that Spotify pays out to entities which are ultimately owned by themselves, or that they get kickbacks in other ways like ad purchases (probably illegal, but hard to prove if you're at all clever about it). I remember I found a track a few years ago, by the artist Mayhem. No, not the metal band. The background music artist Mayhem. Which only ever released two tracks. One of which, "Solitude Hymns", happened to get featured in one of Spotify's playlists, and managed to rack up more plays than any track by the more famous metal band at the time. They haven't scrubbed it. Just look it up.
vintermann 9mo ago
Yet another person who plays the bogeyman card of "conspiracy theory" when what is described is garden variety corruption, only takes a trivial amount of secret coordination in a group smaller than your average terrorist cell, and could probably even be defended as legal with a small legal team (Spotify probably has a big one). There are a billion ways you could cash in on this. A dead easy one is "music written for hire by a company you own". Even if Spotify is not doing the slightest thing like this, suggesting that they might is not a conspiracy theory. Quit trying to tar every proposed view of the world you disagree with with that label. You're just making it easier for the actual grand conspiracy theorists.
- troupo 9mo ago
  > Yet another person who plays the bogeyman card of "conspiracy theory" > Even if Spotify is not doing the slightest thing like this, suggesting that they might is... ...textbook definition of conspiracy theory Also note how your entire text is just unsubstantiated claims. Including emotionally charged words like "terrorist cell" that give your words so much weight and meaning.
  - vintermann 9mo ago
    Your "textbook definition" is BS. A theory that someone conspires is not enough to call something a conspiracy theory. You would not call a prosecutor who accuses someone of "criminal conspiracy" a conspiracy theorist, even though they have a theory that someone is conspiring. A terrorist cell is just another example of a real type of group which obviously conspires. You're not a conspiracy theorist for believing they exist. Conspiracy theorists is something we call people who believe in a grand conspiracy, one which, had it been real, would have required superhuman levels of coordination and secrecy. That's the brush you for some mysterious reason want to tar critics of Spotify with. And for the second time this week, someone demands "evidence" for expressions of distrust.
    - troupo 9mo ago
      > And for the second time this week, someone demands "evidence" for expressions of distrust. Funny then that to illustrate your point you use this example: "You would not call a prosecutor who accuses someone of 'criminal conspiracy' a conspiracy theorist". You know what separates criminal prosecutors from conspiracy theorists? They have to provide evidence. Or this example: "A terrorist cell is just another example of a real type of group which obviously conspires. You're not a conspiracy theorist for believing they exist." Yes, because we have evidence that they exist. See how this works? A theory with no supporting evidence is a crackpot theory. For example, I can say anything I want about you. When asked about evidence, I can lapse into demagoguery about terrorist cells or something. Perhaps you are a part of a terrorist cell? Otherwise, why bring them into discussion?
james_marks 9mo ago
Not a conspiracy theory. Spotify hires session musicians (pre-AI) to pay a flat fee for hours of background music. Since many high volume Spotify users just want “something jazzy” in the background, it helps them reduce royalties.
- troupo 9mo ago
  > Spotify hires session musicians (pre-AI) to pay a flat fee for hours of background music. Spotify doesn't do it because Spotify doesn't produce music and doesn't have direct contracts with musicians. > Since many high volume Spotify users just want “something jazzy” in the background, it helps them reduce royalties. How does it help them reduce royalties when they don't produce their own music and license 100% of their music from distributors and rights holders?
  - iamacyborg 9mo ago
    You're being unnecesarily pedantic. They might not hire the musicians directly but if they're hiring an agency to do that, it's effetively the same thing. Ultimately they're trying to get generic music for cheap to reduce royalty payments to artists.
    - troupo 9mo ago
      > Ultimately they're trying to get generic music for cheap to reduce royalty payments to artists. 1. Spotify doesn't pay artists. Spotify doesn't have direct contracts with artists. Spotify pays rights holder and distributors. I really wish people who have strong opinions on music industry learned at least the absolute bare minimum about the subject. 2. Again, bringing back to my original comment: where's the evidence for that? E.g. the one and only article everyone links [1] and doesn't bother to understand literally has statements like this: --- start quote --- But at the end of the day, [the ghost musician] said, it was still a paycheck: “I did it because I needed a job real bad and the money was better than any money I could make from even successful indie labels, many of which I worked with,” he told me. ... Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty. --- end quote --- That doesn't mesh well with the narrative of "Spotify bad, doesn't pay royalties, etc.", does it? [1] https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/ https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...

Mistletoe 9mo ago

Is there a good way to know if what you are listening to is AI? I listen to a lot of outrun and synthwave type stuff and it isn’t as easy as googling the artist’s name, a lot of it is made by artists that don’t tour and are quite small etc.

jrflowers 9mo ago
The best guide by far for identifying AI generated music is on Newgrounds, of all places. https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/site-moderation/how-to-detect-ai-audio https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/site-modera...