
How to Make Money from Spotify by Streaming Silence - stenson
http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/mar/19/spotify-streaming-silence-vulpeck-make-money?CMP=twt_gu
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zacinbusiness
I wonder how viable this would be for someone who wants to actually scam
Spotify? For example, I'm assuming that with only minimal investment one could
produce and submit a series of silent audio tracks. Then one could produce a
field of virtualized instances of Spotify and a fleet of bots to "listen" to
those tracks. But how expensive would all of that be? And at what scale would
the operation be necessary to produce an actual profit, if it could happen at
all?

According to this article [1] the artist makes about $.004 per play. So, 250
plays comes out to about a dollar and thus 25,000,000 plays comes out to
$100,000 which I would consider to be a pretty good outcome for such a quickly
baked scam. But that comes out to 7.5 million hours of streaming at 30 seconds
per play, and there are what...9000 or so hours in a year? So over 800 years
to make $100,000 (pre-tax).

Now I suppose it could be ramped up. What if we had 100,000 bots that each
streamed a clip for 30 seconds and they ran around the clock. If we play one
clip for 30 seconds 100,000 times, simultaneously then we get to
100000/250=$400 worth of plays. So then we could make out 100,000 in about 75
hours. But how expensive would it be to run that many bots all at the same
time?

Someone please check my math and my assumptions, I'm sure I did something
wrong here.

[1]: [http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/19/zoe-
keatin...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/19/zoe-keating-
spotify-streaming-royalties)

[edit 1]: also we need to count the hours planning and spinning up the bots in
our value calculation..right?

~~~
edkennedy
It's really wonderful to see capitalism fueling innovation like this. You
would also need to include the cost of processing power + server time/aws vm's
required. This assumes also that you won't get caught - extra work will
probably be required in making your bots seem like "natural users" so they
can't be detected.

~~~
zacinbusiness
In my case it's more like "I wonder..." fueling innovation. But I'm also too
lazy to try it, but if anyone else wants to give it a go and they end up
making a profit, please send me along a 5% "idea man" fee :-)

On a more serious note, I wonder if this is something that Spotify already
tries to detect? Or if it's such a ludicrous idea that they just assumed no
one would really try it?

~~~
username223
> In my case it's more like "I wonder..." fueling innovation.

You put the wrong part in scare quotes. The word you're looking for is
"arbitrage," not "innovation." Some guy figured out that Spotify pays more to
send data than Amazon charges to accept and discard it. Eventually Spotify
will pay someone to reject this particular scam, then to reject more
sophisticated versions, then to reject legitimate songs that look a bit like
scams, etc. That's just how things work.

~~~
zem
the quotes around "I wonder" aren't scare quotes, they're just quotes.

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chimeracoder
As a huge fan of John Cage, I feel obligated to point out that this is not
"scamming" \- it is a true performance of a musical work[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono also did "Two Minutes of Silence"[1], which was later
covered by Soundgarden as "One Minute of Silence" on the album _Ultramega OK_
(they didn't like Yoko Ono's minute, so they only covered Lennon's[2].)

As Debussy famously remarked, "Music is the space between the notes."[3]

[0] Of course, that means they should probably be paying royalties to the Cage
estate, but that's a separate matter....

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfinished_Music_No._2:_Life_w...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unfinished_Music_No._2:_Life_with_the_Lions)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramega_OK](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramega_OK)

[3]
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Claude_Debussy)

~~~
wtracy
Really, the scam is not the silent tracks--the scam is encouraging your fans
to repeatedly play the tracks when they're not actually listening.

~~~
aroch
Simple fix: "The low level noise caused by my speakers being powered but not
making noise helps my sleep similar to a white noise machine."

~~~
alttab
Simpler Fix: Change the Spotify Terms of Service.

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blueblob
Perhaps this is why Pandora has the annoying "I'm still listening" button, so
they don't have to pay out royalties on things their users aren't listening
to.

~~~
bluetidepro
Somewhat related: It's also probably why services like Netflix have the same
thing built in ("I'm still watching" button after watching like 3 episodes of
a show without clicking buttons), so some bot computer doesn't just stream and
record everything.

~~~
tokenizerrr
I always figured that button was for people who fell asleep or had to leave
their computers. It would be trivial to automate that prompt away for a
malicious user.

~~~
isaacremuant
not as easy but still, doable by someone with determination and a simple
knowledge of computer vision and UI simulation.

~~~
GFischer
It is really trivial, there are several programs that automate UIs, I remember
them from trying my hand at automating trading for a game which didn't provide
an API :) .

Automate 7 was really impressive, and they're at version 9 now

[http://www.networkautomation.com/automate/automate/](http://www.networkautomation.com/automate/automate/)

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DanBC
This makes my product harder.

I am recording a lot of "record player noise" (stylus on vinyl; run-out
grooves and clicks; run-in grooves; clunking arms and needle drops; etc.

People download (or rip) their music as high quality lossless flac. They then
mix my recorded record noise in, with other processing ("bad 80s digital amp";
"good 90s hifi amp"; "valve amp" etc) to get the vinyl experience with modern
computing convenience.

Having the distribution of near silent tracks being scrutinised is going to be
gently worrying.

~~~
murki
Yeah, the "instagram" of audio. A lot of producers do this kind of post-
production (example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5eJOhUeWPY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5eJOhUeWPY))

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gumby
Best comment is on that Guardian page by a "LoveActuary": _I really hope that
the album has a hidden track which is an ear-piercingly loud alarm._

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SideburnsOfDoom
Probably more effective all around to turn your device off instead, and when
you get your electricity bill, which will be a few cents cheaper as a result,
send the band half the difference.

~~~
icebraining
Not according to my napkin math:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7426245](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7426245)

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chrisBob
I bet you can't listen to anything from Vulfpeck on Spotify for much longer.

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aestra
What's the point of silent tracks? The same effect can be accomplished by just
turning the volume down all the way. They could encourage people to play their
real tracks without volume or with speakers unplugged without making it so
obvious they are trying to game the system.

~~~
pbw
The purpose of the silent tracks is to generate publicity. This is not a
genuine attempt to conduct a scam. It also makes it convenient if spotify
docks them for the bogus plays. Finally this way they can see if their actual
tracks are gaining popularity, which is the whole goal.

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jaynos
Silent tracks seem unnecessary. Why not play an actual album, but with the
sound turned off?

~~~
giarc
I think the silent tracks contribute to the novelty of the idea. This is about
promotion and I wonder if this article would have been written if it was just
about a band asking their fans to stream their album.

~~~
qbrass
Make an album where every track is only a couple of seconds of music, but you
can play the tracks randomly to generate an infinitely long ever-changing
song.

You get the hype, the tracks are short, so you get more plays/hour and you can
pass it off as an artistic endeavor.

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eightofdiamonds
Sounds like a great way to scam the advertisers. I doubt this will fly if it
catches on since advertisers will be coming back at Spotify citing a big
decrease in ad interaction.

~~~
mixedbit
I guess silence clips are intended for paying users, no one would want to
listen to ad interrupted silence.

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schnevets
During the iTunes heyday, artists like Billy Corgan complained that selling
individual songs for a dollar would be the death of the album. Eight years
later, the optimal model for streaming services appear to be churning out as
many small songs as possible. Perhaps more concept albums like this one will
follow?

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jasonlfunk
I'm sure this is against Spotify's TOS in some way.

~~~
username223
Probably. If their lawyers are worth their salt, the TOS are written so as
many people as possible are violating them, in case they need a legal excuse.

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sabhiram
This is no different than a click(listen) farm.

Lets slap a new virtual currency together and make listening to the song on
spotify the proof of work! Bingo, straight to the moon!

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daniserra
They're not scamming Spotify, they're scamming all the other music groups that
would have received that revenue. For Spotify is a zero-sum game.

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waterlesscloud
The people being scammed here are the other musicians. Spotify isn't paying
more in total royalties, it's just paying less to other artists.

Good job!

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sdepablos
I was on the understanding that Spotify payed on unique users per month per
song, not on the number of individual plays of a song.

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Dirlewanger
This can be patched in 2 minutes with a "Are you still here?" prompt. Can't
believe this is a news article, wow.

~~~
nej
I would cancel my premium Spotify subscription if they ever did anything like
that and would resort back to buying music from iTunes.

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chrisyeah
And what would you say if YOU were Spotify? "Damn cheaters!!"

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joshdance
Hello silence my old friend, you've come to make me money again.

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Fasebook
Music is the empty space between notes.

