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Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

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Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#21
post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

I think that's unlikely. If I am not mistaken, the EU directive will not be implemented for another two years.

Is there an advantage for Spotify to allow 2 more years of copyright-infringing uploads that they have to clean up later?

Is there another plausible reason for Spotify shutting down direct uploads that's unrelated to copyrights?

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#22
Most likely explanation - nobody was using it. They only introduced it as a beta feature recently, and you have to use a distributor like CDBaby or distrokid to get your music onto other streaming sites anyway, so unless you were only interested in Spotify there was no point

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#23
post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

This makes sense up to the point about 'the human version of the "contentid" algorithm'.

The record label arrangement makes the record labels the only valid source of original music.

The government issues copyrights. Looks like "human" governance needs to catch up, and issuing agencies need to provide "algorithmic" means to verify the copyright status of any content.

[without wasting too much energy ..]

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#24
post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

I doubt that's the case. From what I understand the beta was barely used by people enrolled in into it and Spotify has killed more popular things before.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#25
post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

I think that's unlikely. If I am not mistaken, the EU directive will not be implemented for another two years.

Two Years aren't exactly that much of an extension.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#26
post #17
post #14

The submitted article doesn't mention it but my guess at connecting the dots is that it's related to EU Article 13's stringent requirement of "upload filters"[0]. Yes, Spotify's direct uploading "gave opportunity for small artists to share their talent" -- but that same mechanism also made it too easy to upload copyright infringing content. Since Spotify does not have a machine learning AI copyright filter like Youtu…

Good job, EU! Squelch your citizenry in the interest of the copyright industry. Content filtering is draconian and fundamentally opposed to a free and open society.

While I don't think it's exclusively due to it, it is certainly a factor

A lot of independent artists supported art 13 though, let's see how they like this change

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#27
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's unlikely. If I am not mistaken, the EU directive will not be implemented for another two years.

Is there an advantage for Spotify to allow 2 more years of copyright-infringing uploads that they have to clean up later? Is there another plausible reason for Spotify shutting down direct uploads that's unrelated to copyrights?

Yeah, they could build an in house alternative to the YouTube algorithm to detect dupes/ infringing material.

Spotify please hire me so I can work on this, tack.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's unlikely. If I am not mistaken, the EU directive will not be implemented for another two years.

Is there an advantage for Spotify to allow 2 more years of copyright-infringing uploads that they have to clean up later? Is there another plausible reason for Spotify shutting down direct uploads that's unrelated to copyrights?

> Is there another plausible reason for Spotify shutting down direct uploads that's unrelated to copyrights?

It's a service very few people use that costs them money to maintain and support. You already need to go through cdbaby and similar services for all other distributions and being just on spotify instead of all of them is not very appealing.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#29
post #16

I guess that means we cant upload tool anymore under other names

Really wish Spotify did the Google Play Music thing of letting you upload a few thousand songs to fill in the gaps in their library.

From what I can tell, they sorta do - they let you add songs on your device, but I haven't been able to find them in my app sooo :|

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#30
post #20
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good job, EU! Squelch your citizenry in the interest of the copyright industry. Content filtering is draconian and fundamentally opposed to a free and open society.

It keeps happening with their draconian regulations. After the privacy/data protection bill, I hear that the european market for online advertising imploded trying to meet regulations and Google Ads gobbled up some 30-40% more market share in Europe. It came down to the fact that Google was able to meet the regulations fastest, and achieve informed user consent across a wide userbase dramatically faster than small lo…

The whole GDPR thing was known years in advance and even smaller outfits would have had enough time to make changes.

An additional anecdote: we experimentally tried a smaller German ad exchange (used by quite some big-name sites here). Profits went way up compared to AdSense. What also went way up was the amount of stupid, low effort clickbait-bullshit (which as a non-lawyer I sometimes questioned the legality off considering some told outright lies). We stopped using them shortly afterward.

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