Spotify has been promoting ghost artists to avoid paying royalties to real artists, a report in Futurism, citing a new book, has claimed. In an excerpt from the book, Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist, author Liz Pelly revealed that the Swedish music platform has a secretive internal programme that prioritises cheap and generic music.
The programme called Perfect Fit Content (PFC) involves a network of affiliated production firms and a team of employees secretly creating "low-budget stock muzak" and placing them on Spotify's curated playlists. First piloted in 2010, PFC became Spotify's biggest profitability scheme by 2017.
As per Ms Pelly, by engineering such a situation, Spotify was aiming to grow the percentage of total streams of music that is cheaper for the platform.
"It also raises worrying questions for all of us who listen to music. It puts forth an image of a future in which, as streaming services push music further into the background, and normalise anonymous, low-cost playlist filler, the relationship between listener and artist might be severed completely," she wrote.
By 2023, the team overseeing the PFC model were responsible for hundreds of playlists. More than 150 playlists with titles such as "Deep Focus", "Cocktail Jazz" and "Morning stretch" were populated entirely by PFC content.
One of the jazz musicians told Ms Pelly that he was approached by Spotify to create an ambient track for an upfront fee of a few hundred dollars. However, he was told that he wouldn't own the master rights to the track. The musician agreed, but once the track started raking in millions of streams, he realised he may have been duped.
'Soulless music'
Social media users slammed Spotify for the move, with many stating that the platform was digging its own grave with such actions.
"Going to be nothing but soulless AI music in a few years. That's one easy way to never pay royalties again lol," said one user, while another added: "Once you notice these artists it's pretty easy to ID them even just from listening to the music."
A third commented: "I deleted my Spotify and cancelled the subscription."
This is not the first instance when Spotify has come under scrutiny for its shady activities. In February, a report in The Guardian highlighted that Spotify's Discovery Mode allowed artists to be noticed by listeners in exchange for a 30 per cent royalty reduction.
