The fake artists problem on streaming platforms • Hacker News Board

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#101

Post by djur » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:52 AM UTC

quitit wrote: post #54

brundolf wrote: post #16

What makes them "fake"? I kept waiting for the author to explain how people are taking others' music and re-packaging it as their own to collect royalties, but it doesn't sound like that's what's happening. SEO-optimized music is not "fake music". It's an interesting phenomenon, and maybe even a bad one, but framing it this way is disingenuous and alarmist.

My assumption here is that popular songs are covered then assembled into generic playlists which are then used to divert the lion’s share of revenue away from the original artist’s music. Thus providing Spotify or the labels a low-cost way of minimising their royalty payout figures for listeners that aren’t fussed if they hear the original or a cover (eg mindless background music). They are “fake” artists as they’re…

If that's the case, it's not what's discussed in this article. I don't think there are popular original songs being covered in this list of "background jazz" songs, and if they were, the originals were presumably not the same kind of moody muzak that the playlists are designed around. This is a "scam" in the same sense that the CDs of generic mellow coffeehouse music you could get at Starbucks were "scams".

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#102

Post by djur » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 1:57 AM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #9

Fake? By what attribution? > Note that one of the Hara Noda tracks has almost four million plays—that’s more streams than are attributed to most of the tracks on Jon Batiste’s We Are, which just won the Grammy for Album of the Year. The author seems to get mixed up in the process of legitimization. There is both no reason a Grammy should legitimize an artist nor why someone should want to delegate the process of legi…

And for that matter, no real disrespect intended to Batiste, who is a talented guy, but would he have won a Grammy if he wasn't associated with a popular TV show? Does the involvement of CBS in promoting his work make him a "fake artist"? I don't think that's fair at all.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#103

Post by djur » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:08 AM UTC

iostream24 wrote: post #23

It’s shameful to read all the folks claiming that actually known famous historical jazz greats are somehow being legitimately usurped by generic nothing music even in the context of background music. What the article discusses is clearly dishonest, whatever your take on the word “fake” Grammy awards are indicative of some popularity and reknown, so not seeing Grammy winners on Spotify genre pages is suspect. There ar…

What award-winning artist other than Kenny G is excited to see their work on the "Background Jazz" playlist?

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#104

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

larkinnaire wrote: post #89

aimor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes the artists fake is that they are publishing only a couple songs for the specific purpose of providing the streaming platform with royalty free music, and then they disappear. The example pictures in the article show artists that have published 6 minutes and 8 minutes of music. There's also a statistic that 20 people created 500 artists. These artists are shells, facades, illusory, fake. Go looking for the…

If these people create real music, "fake" seems like the wrong adjective. It's very common for musicians to be involved in a bunch of different bands, or even for the same group of people to release music under different band names, for when they want to experiment with stuff that isn't their normal band's "brand". What's being described sounds like SEO optimization to me. A recent Reply All episode interviewed someo…

[deleted]

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#105

Post by nwsm » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:21 AM UTC

razzimatazz wrote: post #57

paxys wrote: post #24

I'm not sure I understand the author's point here. Spotify is recommending artists outside of the top 40 charts who they haven't heard of before, therefore they are fake?

There are steps missing, perhaps - Artists with only 2 songs on Spotify are probably fake, there are odds they are the property of Spotify themselves and have been carefully created and placed into playlists to minimize royalty costs to Spotify. I love to discover a great new song and artist on a playlist, where that artist has a whole bunch of songs for me to try out - such an artist is much more real. And I'm willi…

> Artists with only 2 songs on Spotify are probably fake

Based on what? Spotify has made it very easy for independent artists to publish on the platform. I know small time musicians with just a couple releases.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#106

Post by Dotnaught » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:22 AM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #13

scantron4 wrote: post #6

If generic jazz can easily substitute "important" jazz it just means your important jazz doesn't have the value you ascribe to it, especially not in the context of "things for background music." I don't think this is saying anything about more active music consumption where people are actually listening to it. I personally get annoyed if more than 20% of a mix is songs I haven't already upvoted so there isn't a lot o…

Are these artists even "fake"? Are they "bad"? Or are they just mediocre and good enough for background music? I guess the complaint is that jazz is still kind of a niche genre, compared to "background music that generally resembles jazz". But maybe real jazz is actually less good as background music compared to not-quite-jazz. Otherwise, why aren't actual jazz labels putting effort into playlist placements like thes…

I believe the most apt analogy would be Amazon promoting Amazon-commissioned knockoffs of its merchant's products, something that's already drawn the attention of antitrust authorities.

It will be interesting to see whether antitrust law can be applied to Spotify in this context, since its actions are arguably anticompetitive.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#107

Post by nerdponx » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:23 AM UTC

vasco wrote: post #66

yesitisfake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I kept waiting for the author to explain how people are taking others' music and re-packaging it as their own to collect royalties, but it doesn't sound like that's what's happening. Then you missed the point, which was that Spotify diverts listening-minutes to these fake artists to lower the total amount of royalties they have to pay, thus increasing their bottom line. If the algorithm and business model are predi…

Are shows that Netflix comes up with the concept and produces fake? Is it only real entertainment if the platform buys it from someone else? Let's imagine these "artists" are all actually created by a team of software engineers at Spotify tweaking a GPT-3-like model for songs. If the songs get listens and users like them, so what? It's not like you think you're listening to Taylor Swift but instead get a fake. You're…

The problem would be that the platform serving the music (and making recommendations of what to listen to) has a strong incentive to promote their own brand, creating a competitive disadvantage for "real" musicians on the same platform.

This is the music equivalent of Amazon Basics. If Spotify really is creating fake artists to avoid paying real artists, it's the same kind of monopolistic vertical integration as Amazon manufacturing their own products to avoid paying third-party sellers.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#108

Post by PebblesRox » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:27 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #77

hadlock wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had a system like this when I worked at a retail store, and later a movie theater. It was a double-sided cassette that had 60 minutes of audio, and would auto switch from A/B side and back again. Most of the year it was just instrumental background music, but Christmas was a really hated time of year, as all those songs have lyrics (that's what makes them Christmas themed) and it was very obvious how long you'd be…

I avoid all shopping around Christmas for that reason, it is just too terrible to hear the same crap over and over again in every store.

The worst thing is that now Halloween music is becoming a thing.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#109

Post by Animats » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:37 AM UTC

jrd259 wrote: post #55

Animats wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If generic jazz can easily substitute "important" jazz it just means your important jazz doesn't have the value you ascribe to it, especially not in the context of "things for background music." This is a modern version of Seeburg background music. Seeburg was a jukebox company, and as a sideline, they also sold a background music system. This used a special purpose record changer that played a stack of records over…

I note that streema.com is trying really hard to get me to install "easy search tool" by favouring the START button above the PLAY button. If it's not them directly, it's a dark-pattern ad they are running

Sorry, I had that blocked, so I didn't see it.

Here's the raw audio stream: http://198.178.121.76:8157/stream

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#110

Post by astura » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 2:43 AM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #72

_Nat_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like they're " fake " in that they're apparently fictional characters who aren't explicitly presented as such. They're just branding-icons, like the mascots who make a brand-name cereal. And then like with cereal, someone else actually makes it. I guess that this might be concerning for folks who feel like they form spiritual-connections to artists, if they then learn that there wasn't really a singular artist…

That's a huge number of artists. Take Britney Spears' Grammy winning Toxic for example. The song was written and produced by Bloodshy & Avant, with additional writing from Cathy Dennis and Henrik Jonback[1]. …Baby One More Time, another example of hers contains zero songs written by Spears. Is that the same kind of deception that an unknown artist makes when publishing an original song that makes it way onto a jazz p…

I don't know how true this is but it's been widely reported that the lyric "hit me baby one more time" was due to the song's writer (who is Swedish) believing "hit" was American slang for "call."

It's plausible due to the idiom "hit me up" meaning "call me."