
What’s really going on with Spotify’s fake artist controversy - dalfonso
https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15961416/spotify-fake-artist-controversy-mystery-tracks
======
dalfonso
A few thoughts: 1\. I definitely wish there was a way to filter out "covers"
from Spotify. There are definitely a handful of times that Spotify puts
covered versions of songs in their "Discover" playlist. 2\. If these songs are
"fake" in that Spotify is commissioning artists to create original songs and
then featuring those songs in Spotify-created playlists, is this any different
than Netflix/Hulu/Amazon original content?

~~~
nicky0
Re (2) the article concluded that Spotify is not commissioning songs. The
"fake artists" are nothing of the sort, they are often just pseudonyms for
leser known musicians legitimately releasing music though the Spotify
platform. Mainly in the ambient/chill/piano genres.

------
beager
If I'm an enterprising bedroom producer (which I once was), I'd jump on this
opportunity and go to Spotify with my music. Ten aliases, undercut the other
filler artists, A/B test their performance, and see if I could use this
dynamic to launch my own career.

In fact, with how valuable this could be to true indies, I'm surprised Spotify
isn't soliciting this stronger.

------
marssaxman
> After going through MBW’s list of 50 artists, The Verge has learned that
> most of the artists on the list are pseudonyms for real musicians.

Well, duh. What else could it be? Unless Spotify has been secretly investing a
lot of money into cutting-edge machine creativity research a la Google's
"Magenta" project, then of course these tracks are coming from "real
musicians".

------
type0
I'm not sure if there's any controversy here. Fake news, fake artists, fake
economy, fake everything. When does it stop?

