An investigation by journalist Liz Pelly, in the Harper’s Magazinereveals that many Spotify playlists are filled with music from “fake artists” or “ghost artists” in order to reduce royalty rates for real artists and increase the company’s profit.
Research shows that it is a program called Perfect Fit Content (PFC) who is behind this technique and the music of its fake artists. In existence since 2017, PFC collaborates with several music production companies. These are behind his pieces and his fake aliases entirely created in order to populate several massively listened to playlists. “Real” independent artists are therefore, in many cases, left aside at the expense of “ghost artists”. Spotify can therefore save on royalties and these are shared among PFC partners.
During a meeting with the Swedish media Today’s NewsPelly discovered that there are around 20 musicians who are behind the work of around 500 “artists” listed on the platform and who have created thousands of songs which have accumulated millions of streams.
Liz Pelly’s research also indicates that it is often towards more instrumental playlists that these songs make their way en masse, including jazz, lo-fi, hip-hop and ambient music. The Spotify Playlist Concentration accrueor Deep Focus in English, for example, has been recorded more than 4,500,000 times. The investigation of Harper’s Magazine revealed that this playlist and several others of the genre are teeming with fake artists who demand lower royalties. The situation is similar for playlists like 100% Lounge, Bossa Nova Dinner, Cocktail Jazz, Deep Sleep and Morning Stretch the vast majority of which are supplied by PFC.
According to the investigation, Spotify managers justified the PFC program by claiming that these songs were mainly listened to as background music and that users therefore did not know the difference. This turned out to be correct. However, they also argued that little music exists to fill these playlists, something that has since been disproven.
It also appears that Spotify employees who opposed PFC have been sidelined or replaced by employees who are more open to the influx of music from fake artists into playlists created by the online listening giant.
This investigation comes at a time when Spotify appears to be embracing a shift toward artificial intelligence on the platform. AI was also used in the latest edition of the Spotify Wrappedcriticized by the public, and will potentially serve playlists in the future.
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