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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

#61

Post by dtech »

jasode wrote: post #33
the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

>It's a service very few people use that costs them money to maintain and support. I'm not a Spotify expert so I'm not understanding why independents artist without labels "costs money to maintain support" that isn't already spent to enable the labels to upload their artists' songs. Let's say a Universal Music Group[1] representative logs into Spotify's system to upload Justin Bieber's latest 4-minute song. (Spotify…

> Why does it cost more to Spotify to let the unknown-Joe-Blow-not-signed-to-a-label upload his 4-minute song?

It all boils down to that Joe Blow is an unstrusted actor and big label is not. They needs to check that Joe Blow is not uploading Bieber's latest song as his own and that all the metadata is correct while they not need do that for most labels.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#63

Post by simias »

sk0g wrote: post #27
jasode wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Youtube is built around letting random individuals upload their videos, it makes a lot of sense for them to implement clever automated filters, contentID etc... And even then it doesn't seem to work that well since I very often see videos popping up of Youtubers complaining about abusive demonetization and false-positive flagging.

On the other hand I strongly suspect that the overwhelming majority of the music streamed by Spotify comes from "the industry" instead of artists uploading their own songs themselves. Implementing complicated filters (and playing the arms race game against people trying to work around them) is probably not worth it for them.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#64

Post by hobs »

jasode wrote: 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 routinely see major artists complaining on twitter that spotify allows people to upload their content directly and get paid.

While I think the GDPR plays into it, its really two birds with one stone in my mind.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#65

Post by parksy »

fb03 wrote: post #37
neka wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.dittomusic.com

Thank you. Any good alternatives?

Distrokid - https://distrokid.com

Have used it for over a year, works well, simple upload process, gets out to all the stores quickly, and annual fees are very reasonable.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#66

Post by danielscrubs »

jasode wrote: post #21
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #18

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?

Yes. To obtain tagged data to train models. Just like all big companies become leaders and push juridical boundaries.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#67

Post by nerdponx »

efdee wrote: post #46
nerdponx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's OK, they don't pay the small artists more than a pittance anyway. I canceled my subscription a while ago and started pirating music again. When I want to support a small artist, I buy their music on Bandcamp.

Why did you go back to pirating, instead of paying for albums? Could it be that you were only willing to give a pittance to begin with?

In the Spotify payment model, some artists make non-trivial amounts of money, and most make effectively no money. The listener doesn't choose which artists fall into which category.

I prefer to choose. If some artists that I listen to will be paid out of my $10/month contribution, I'd rather control that distribution of my $10 directly.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#68

Post by beckler »

snowwolf wrote: post #62

I’m not familiar with the process, but could there also have been a fraud aspect (not copyright) to this that wasn’t worth the effort required to prevent? Upload “songs”, generate lots of listens, get paid.

Yes, I hope so, because fraud is a huge issue with Spotify.

An older acquaintance of mine is a professional musician living in Nashville doing commissions.

He made a track for a trailer of a video game, but chose not to publish it on Spotify (for reasons I don't know). One of the fans ripped the song from the trailer, uploaded it to Spotify, and was collecting all the royalties.

Even though Spotify keeps taking it down, someone else uploads it again, ad nauseam.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#69

Post by nerdponx »

gtirloni wrote: post #47
nerdponx wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's OK, they don't pay the small artists more than a pittance anyway. I canceled my subscription a while ago and started pirating music again. When I want to support a small artist, I buy their music on Bandcamp.

Why don't your support big artists as well?

I don't listen to them that much, and they don't need my support.

Re: Spotify shuts down direct music uploading for independent artists

#70

Post by lukeh »

dmitriid wrote: post #7
rhamzeh wrote: post #3

Google did the same a couple of months back[1]. Is there a reason these companies are actively against independent artists being able to upload the music directly? [1]( https://9to5google.com/2019/04/03/google-play-music-shutdown... )

These companies are not against independent artists. The big rights holders are. Allowing artists to upload directly is a legal clusterfuck of minefields and business risks (pardon the language): - what happens when an artist who is signed with Warner Music starts uploading their music directly? - what happens when the Big Three start viewing Spotify (or Google, or anyone, really) as their competitor in music distrib…

If you did the first thing, you’d be stupid, and in breach of your contract, just as if you shared it elsewhere. And it’d get taken down pretty quickly, algorithmically or not.
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