🔵 The chaos of Spotify's flawed fraud policies
Entire catalogue pulled, tracks removed with weak evidence of fraud... what's going on?
As you may recall, Spotify changed a few policies around remuneration and streaming fraud. The change that got the most press was arguably the part regarding plays falling below a certain threshold no longer receiving any royalties. However another related to streaming fraud. From January, Spotify started charging labels and distributors per track when “flagrant artificial streaming” was detected on their content.
The logic here was presumably to pass the onus of responsibility back to the distributors, making policing content their problem and not Spotify’s.
What is now happening, however, is that distributors are pulling content, and it would appear in many cases, the grounds for pulling that content are paper thin.
It strikes me that the loophole Spotify failed to account for here is that sadly, people might weaponise this new approach. In short, I could pay a stream-botting service to fraudulently spike plays on an artist who I might dislike. The plays are then shown to be fraudulent, and so the artist’s work is pulled off the platform by their distributor.
So you can see the issue: artists are now having their music pulled from Spotify, accused of streaming fraud, when there is no evidence to suggest the artist is actually responsible for said fraud. After all, these stream botting services will take anyone’s money; there is no requirement to prove you are the artist in question.
To further twist the knife, it would appear some distributors - Tunecore evidently being one - are taking down songs and then refusing to pay out any royalties still owed. So not only is the issue that music comes down, it is also that royalties are being held by the distributor too - something that, fairly understandably, artists are getting outraged about.
Here’s a good example - and what’s notable here is that the YouTuber in question is a full-time attorney, and therefore not just some aggrieved kid in a bedroom:
Now obviously Tunecore is the focus for the anger in this example above, but really this comes down to how distributors are responding to Spotify’s own crackdown on streaming fraud.
I think this also lends weight to Martin Mills’ comments regarding fraud. His view, mentioned in this interview on Merlin’s website, was that “A system of DSPs charging a small flat fee for delivery, and maybe also storage, seems to me would result in self-regulation, and avoid the need to make judgements”.
To be clear, Mills wasn’t referrring specifically to fraud; more the saturation of DSPs with AI-created tracks etc. However that saturation is happening often in tandem with fraud, and so his approach might well go a long way to preventing fraud in the first place.
Either way, it is clear that at present, this system is causing a fair amount of chaos and bad will towards various companies. I don’t blame the likes of Tunecore for having to carefully police their system. Arguably the issue is that by passing the buck on fraud, Spotify is forcing them into these kinds of scenarios that, if the attorney above is to be believed, may soon result in a class action suit.
Right now it feels like this is somewhat flying below the radar on the basis the artists affected are not big names. However one imagines the clock might be ticking on this happening to a big name, and at that point the negative press might exponentially increase.
A smarter move might be to reconsider how fraud can be tackled, as it feels relatively obvious to me that there are monumental flaws with the current approach.
Have a great evening,
D.
🎶 (still) listening to “Sleepjunk” by Emperor’s New Clothes. This is turning into my Album of the Year thus far - which is ironic given it is 20 years but only got released last week…
📺 watching “3 Body Problem | Final Trailer” on YouTube. This is the new sci fi series from the Game of Thrones team, and it looks both baffling and brilliant at the same time. Consider me intrigued!
Stories from the Music Industry:
Indie artists shift to artist-centric payments on Deezer, as streaming service signs new deal with Merlin
In that move, Merlin will be joining Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG) in shifting away from the traditional pro-rata payment model employed by most music streamers, to one that prioritizes artists with a “consistent an engaged fan base,” as the companies described it in a statement. Merlin’s membership across 70 countries represents 15% of the global recorded music market, and includes indie music companies such as Armada Music, Because Music, CD Baby, Downtown Music, Cinq Music Group, EMPIRE, Ninja Tune, Sub Pop, and Symphonic, among hundreds of others.
👆🏻Hot take: sadly I would argue that if this proves anything, it is that Universal now sets the agenda and everyone, indies included, has to fall in line. What a depressing state of affairs.
Still not convinced about TikTok’s AI music ambitions? This web of patents and trademarks will change your mind.
We also told you about two US patents, secured by ByteDance in recent months, that provide IP protection in the US for the Chinese company’s AI music-related technologies. Now, we’ve uncovered an additional batch of AI music-related patent and trademark filings from ByteDance that will raise more than a few eyebrows in the music industry – covering topics including “data mining” and “music generation”.
👆🏻Hot take: some terrific work from MBW here, lending weight to Universal’s assertions that TikTok was certainly looking to train AI on licensed catalogue for its own benefit.
AI vocal cloning app Voicify offers 3,000 deepfake models to replicate artists’ voices. Now it faces legal action from the UK’s music industry
In its efforts to confront Jammable/Voicify, the BPI has garnered support from various music industry groups, including the UK Musicians’ Union, the Ivors Academy, the Music Publishers Association, UK Music, PPL and the Association of Independent Music (AIM). “The unethical use of AI by platforms such as Voicify AI (now known as Jammable) threatens not only the livelihood of creators but also the trust of music fans,” said Paul Clements, CEO of the Music Publishers Association.
👆🏻Hot take: these are the worst ends of AI - just ripping off artists in the name of turning a buck, then trying to justify it in fairly pathetic ways. Close it down already.
How DSPs can bring about a new music altruism
If we run with the logic that the tracks at the very bottom of the payment pyramid can be demonetised, then surely it follows that tracks at the very top of the pyramid could be remonetised. Effectively a form of “success tax”, or more bluntly a cap on earnings, is applied to the most successful tracks. Once a track crosses a billion streams, they are “taxed” by the DSP and a percentage of their earnings over and above that 1 billion streams gets redirected to a central pool that is shared by the acts and the tracks earning the least on that DSP.
👆🏻Hot take: this is the kind of solid, genuinely great idea that will therefore inevitably never see genuine consideration as it involves businesses and artists acting with conscience as a guide rather than pure capitalism.
Deezer has deleted 26m fake artist and noise tracks since it launched its artist-centric payment model with Universal Music Group
the company has confirmed that it has removed over 26 million tracks in the months since it first launched its Universal Music Group-approved artist-centric payment system (in September 2023). Deezer says that it had around 200 million pieces of content on the platform last year, which means that over 13% of this content has been deleted. “The intention is to declutter the platform, focus on tracks that are valuable to our users and increase the market share for all artists who create this music,” Folgueira told MBW on Thursday (March 14).
👆🏻Hot take: call my a cynic but I’d argue this is as much about cutting massive hosting fees as it is helping users in any way. The bottom line is that most of this stuff doesn’t confuse or clutter up the system; it just sits on servers, never played, never found.
James Blake joins $5-per-month ‘artist subscription’ platform
According to the ‘about’ page on the site for the platform, which launched today (March 20), “artists can share their unreleased tracks directly from their vault to their fans and tap into a new recurring revenue stream”. The first artist to sign up for the service at launch is artist and songwriter James Blake, who, according to the startup’s social media posts will offer his fans unreleased music from his “vault” as well as the opportunity to chat with him about the music.
👆🏻Hot take: I don’t get it. This is literally just Patreon. A friend made me smile with this comment though: “James Blake sounds like he’s been trapped in major label illuminati LA cult for 10 years and just woken up…”
Notable stories from the world of tech:
US accuses Apple of monopolizing smartphone market in sweeping lawsuit
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Jersey, alleges that Apple has monopoly power in the smartphone market and uses its control over the iPhone to “engage in a broad, sustained, and illegal course of conduct”. The complaint states that the case is about “freeing smartphone markets” from Apple’s anticompetitive practices, arguing that the company has thwarted innovation to maintain market dominance.
👆🏻Hot take: this could have huge implications. It might be one of the biggest stories of 2024, depending on the pace at which it proceeds. Very much a story to follow.
TikTok’s podcast boom might be a bust
“Anecdotally, we do find people come to know about the podcast because of the TikTok (and vice versa) based on emails/comments/surveys/etc.,” Planet Money executive producer Alex Goldmark told Hot Pod in an email. “It is just very hard to quantify or measure which downloads are caused by any one specific TikTok post.”
👆🏻Hot take: what is interesting to me is how little TikTok appears to have done to show how it is contributing to viewers/listeners. That feels like a bad oversight relative to enabling further content creation or advertising in this space.
YouTube now requires creators to label AI content
YouTube has warned content creators that, beginning today, certain uses of AI in their videos must be clearly labeled. The team at the Google-owned video site said a new tool has been added to the Creator Studio, effective immediately, where uploaders can tag videos containing altered or synthetic media that could be mistaken for real. Videos tagged this way will show a relevant label, either in the expanded description or on the video itself, depending on the sensitivity of the subject matter.
👆🏻Hot take: good to see, and necessary too.
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Exit Notes:
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"👆🏻Hot take: this is the kind of solid, genuinely great idea that will therefore inevitably never see genuine consideration as it involves businesses and artists acting with conscience as a guide rather than pure capitalism."
Honestly my favourite phrase in the newsletter today. Nailed it. Sad though.