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The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

tedgioia.substack.com

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Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#61

Post by Clubber »

_Nat_ wrote: post #50
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.

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…

>They're just branding-icons

Honestly that seems like a lot of music since the 2000s. Grab a pretty face with a good body and an autotune.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#62

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

FerociousTimes wrote: post #43

How did he reach the conclusion that Hara Noda is a fictional character? I read the whole piece and I couldn't find any evidence to support this assertion.

He did not, he says "Hara Noda seems to be a real person, working as a producer and drummer in Sweden" ... and then jumps to making claims about Sweden being some hotspot of off-brand cheap instant jazz. The article is easily misunderstand-able and quite insulting towards this one artist in particular as it can create the impression he is somehow involved in some scam.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#63

Post by blurbleblurble »

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…

I think it moreso goes to show that value is subjective and contextual, not that the music you like "doesn't have the the value you ascribe to it". Things always have the value people ascribe to them. It's just that one person's trash is another person's treasure. And that context matters.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#64

Post by yesitisfake »

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.

> 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 predisposed to choosing music that will increase Spotify's profitability, specifically using made-up artists, many of which coincidentally exist in the same country as Spotify, and some 500 of which are actually only controlled by 20 people, I'm not sure why you would bother to think they're "real." It's like saying fake tits are real because you can touch them.

Of course, it's completely up to the Spotify listener to continue using their service, or to use their curated or generated playlists. So for that reason, I don't really care. It just seems interesting to see so many people shilling for Spotify by nitpicking about what they think the word "fake" means.

> “The songwriters and producers of these tracks are either paid a fixed fee per track or a combination of a low advance and reduced royalty rate and it works because these ‘labels’ can guarantee millions of streams through their own network of search engine optimized DSP playlists and YouTube channels.”

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#65

Post by rcoveson »

_Nat_ wrote: post #50
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.

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…

> ...someone else actually makes it.

...which sort of applies to a lot of Hot 100 artists as well. A good songwriter writes it, a talented producer makes it sound good, and a well-known personality sings it (with varying accuracy) and has their name put on it as the "artist".

It's a spectrum. At one end you've got The Velvet Underground playing around a single mic hooked directly to a reel-to-reel, and at the other end you've got neural-net generated lofi hip hop beats to relax/study to. If you sort artists by play count on Spotify, the top results will be all over this spectrum (but mostly in the middle, I think).

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#66

Post by vasco »

yesitisfake wrote: post #64
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.

> 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 clicking a playlist, and that playlist has songs that have been crafted to fit well with the playlist and optimized for discovery. How is this more fake than a record label putting a bunch of young guys together, buying lyrics and songs for them and calling them Backstreet Boys?

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#68

Post by zeroonetwothree »

autarch wrote: post #39
FabHK wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shostakovich is not considered "standard orchestral repertoire"?

His most played works are (I think) symphonies 5 and 7. The 7th was written in 1941. That said, I've seen a bunch of his later works performed too. But this is just nitpicking. Without a good definition of "standard orchestral repertoire" and a good dataset of orchestral performances we're just making things up.

9 is pretty common as well I think

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#69

Post by FerociousTimes »

Jon_Lowtek wrote: post #62
FerociousTimes wrote: post #43

How did he reach the conclusion that Hara Noda is a fictional character? I read the whole piece and I couldn't find any evidence to support this assertion.

He did not, he says "Hara Noda seems to be a real person, working as a producer and drummer in Sweden" ... and then jumps to making claims about Sweden being some hotspot of off-brand cheap instant jazz. The article is easily misunderstand-able and quite insulting towards this one artist in particular as it can create the impression he is somehow involved in some scam.

then why did he insinuate that the artist is fictitious by casting doubts on the presumably inflated number of playbacks in the playlist?

I want my 5 mins back.

Re: The fake artists problem on streaming platforms

#70

Post by _Nat_ »

yesitisfake wrote: post #64
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.

> 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…

> It just seems interesting to see so many people shilling for Spotify by nitpicking about what they think the word "fake" means.

It's moreso that folks just don't like meaningless claims or unclear writing.

The article's titled "The Fake Artists Problem [...]", so it seems entirely reasonable for a reader to want to know is meant by a "fake artist".

Worse, near the end of the article:

> Even the term fake artists doesn’t really do justice to the scope of the situation—because, as we have seen, it’s not the musicians, real or otherwise, who are at the root of the situation, but the dominant players in the industry.

So the author doesn't clearly define what they mean by "fake artists", and then they point out that the term isn't even a good match for what they were trying to say. Which just seems to invite the question: if the author doesn't even like their own wording, why did they use it?

I suspect that part of the problem is that the author's confused about what they're trying to critique. I mean, I get the sense that they're mostly just upset about music-platforms favoring low-cost content. But then they express that concern by instead talking about "fake artists", which seems largely tangential. But then they don't define what they mean by "fake artists", and even critique their own use of the term, making it just.. kind of a mess.

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