The Long History of the 2017 Spotify "Fake Music" Scandal

Abstract

In July 2017 The Verge reported that popular streaming music service Spotify was employing a handful of musicians to produce over fifty tracks to fill out the company’s “Peaceful Piano,” “Calm Vibes,” and “Music for Concentration” in-house playlists.1 Other news outlets soon followed suit with articles such as “Are Spotify’s ‘Fake Artists’ Any Good?” and “Spotify Is Accused of Creating Fake Artists—but What Is a Fake Artist?”2 Since 2013 Spotify has featured playlists that the company curates for users throughout the platform as part of the company’s branding. They are often the first thing that a user sees when opening the app and also appear in searches and in recommendations based on search results. They range widely from influential lists based on genre (e.g., “Rap Caviar”) to innocuous lists based on time of day, season, or mood (e.g., “Throwback Thursday” and “Late Night Vibes”). These playlists are so popular, in fact, that many in the record industry view placement on them as the equivalent of being featured on a top terrestrial radio show in the late twentieth century.3 Like prominent placement on a top radio station, placement on a popular playlist translates to immediate income via increased exposure and listening royalties, especially important factors for middle-class and struggling musicians. The artists named as “fake” by various music news outlets had no internet presence apart from Spotify, with vague, abstract artist logos