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1) It's clearly a problem to artists who have contracts with Spotify and are being defrauded at scale by a secret process to dilute the value of the platform th

1) It's clearly a problem to artists who have contracts with Spotify and are being defrauded at scale by a secret process to dilute the value of the platform they believe they are being distributed on. 2) > If generic slop Spotify created to increase their own profits satisfies the listener the same way a song created with labor and love by an actual artist, well, this is saying something. I am not sure either of us will like the message. Again: users do not know they are being fed this stuff. If this was an official, named Spotify product, and users preferred it, then your anti-anti-slop argument might have some weight. Spotify are doing this in secret because they know it is fraud on likely a contract level but certainly on a cultural level. They'd be rolling it out with press releases if they didn't know it was underhanded. That is the issue. But then again HN is a place where people really don't mind if companies break laws on an epic scale, destroy worker protections, and deliver worse products like AI chatbots replacing human support, if customers don't really notice. So maybe I shouldn't be too surprised by (veiled as much as full-throated) endorsement of secret padding prole-feed.

surgical_fire 2y ago
> It's clearly a problem to artists who have contracts with Spotify and are being defrauded at scale by a secret process to dilute the product they believe they are using. Does the contract say anywhere that Spotify would never provide their own generated music to users of their platform? If the contract between artists and platform provides no such limitations, I fail to see how anyone is being defrauded of anything. > Again: users do not know they are being fed this stuff. Users are actively listening to those slop playlists. It does not seem to bother them (otherwise they would stop listening). If they are satisfied with the offering, what exactly is the issue? > Spotify are doing this in secret because they know it is fraud on likely a contract level but certainly on a cultural level. They'd be rolling it out with press releases if they didn't know it was underhanded. This is plain bullshit. The claim is that people are listening to those songs when they are added to Spotify generated playlists. It wouldn't matter if the song had, say, a tag indicating that it was published by Spotify themselves. Most likely people are not even looking at the names of songs and artists when the slop playlist they are listening to is playing as background noise. > That is the issue. But then again HN is a place where people really don't mind if companies break laws on an epic scale, destroy worker protections, and deliver worse products like AI chatbots replacing human support, if customers don't really notice. If you saw my comment history, you would be surprised. The problem here is that users are actively listening to slop, but they don't seem to mind it. They are fine with slop. They keep listening to slop. For those users, it really does not matter. There is no abuse taking place. I am a Spotify user. I think their app is bloated, but it works alright? I can find albums I like, I can create my own playlists, and I can completely ignore whatever Spotify generates I always did. How exactly are they abusive in their relationship with me as a customer? What you are really angry with is that Spotify found a way to give users that are fine with slop their own cheap slop.
- throw646577 2y ago
  > Does the contract say anywhere that Spotify would never provide their own generated music to users of their platform? > If the contract between artists and platform provides no such limitations, I fail to see how anyone is being defrauded of anything. Then why does Spotify refuse to talk about it? It's clearly outside of the spirit of the deal they are striking with artists generally. Ultimately, they will get away with it because of just the same quasi-justification you're offering: Oh we're not screwing any of them individually, we are screwing them all at once. Congratulations I guess, your argument is on the winning side! But certainly Congress, the UK parliament, EU parliament, Swedish parliament etc. should be looking at this through the lens of regulation and competition law. And for once I hope the record labels -- big and small, because so many of them are small -- sue.
  - surgical_fire 2y ago
    I see you toned down the "defrauded" rhetoric to a much more ambiguous "yeah, it was against the spirit of the deal". I am always in favor of proper regulation. If the EU sees this as abusive and detrimental to competition, they should definitely put restrictions on platforms offering their own content. I wonder if this would extend to, say, supermarkets offering products under their own brands. It is important that regulations don't harm the consumers. As for record labels suing... Well, they will have this problem which is proving that any fraud took place. Unless the numbers were rigged (and no users actually streamed the slop, and it was actually fraud), I fail to see how they would win anything. What would be the allegation? That users are listening to bad music?
    - throw646577 2y ago
      > I see you toned down the "defrauded" rhetoric to a much more ambiguous "yeah, it was against the spirit of the deal". I didn't, particularly. It's just another angle on it. I do think "defrauded" has both legal and moral dimensions, don't you? This is obviously abject shitty treatment or they wouldn't have been secretive about it. I'm not convinced this isn't both dimensions, though -- not clear who is being defrauded but both the labels and the musicians unions should do their best to establish whether it could be them. Spotify have crossed a pretty obvious line here. Weird that you appear to think it's, like, no harm no foul if the customers don't notice. Fast food service logic. There is already quite extensive legal precedent and practice about supermarket own-brand stuff; fifty years of it, with supermarkets retaining teams of lawyers, operating proper clean-room reverse-engineering processes, etc. It's well-trodden legal territory. Supermarkets work right up to the line. But it's no secret that they do, and brands sometimes push back against own-brand deceptions. Mostly supermarkets threaten each other over their own, own-brand stuff. Caterpillar cakes, vodkas etc. If Spotify were honest that they were adding "own brand" music into the mix, then this would be a different discussion. (Amazon are required in the UK and EU to identify which are their own brands, and they mostly comply)

surgical_fire 2y ago

> It's clearly a problem to artists who have contracts with Spotify and are being defrauded at scale by a secret process to dilute the product they believe they are using. Does the contract say anywhere that Spotify would never provide their own generated music to users of their platform? If the contract between artists and platform provides no such limitations, I fail to see how anyone is being defrauded of anything. > Again: users do not know they are being fed this stuff. Users are actively listening to those slop playlists. It does not seem to bother them (otherwise they would stop listening). If they are satisfied with the offering, what exactly is the issue? > Spotify are doing this in secret because they know it is fraud on likely a contract level but certainly on a cultural level. They'd be rolling it out with press releases if they didn't know it was underhanded. This is plain bullshit. The claim is that people are listening to those songs when they are added to Spotify generated playlists. It wouldn't matter if the song had, say, a tag indicating that it was published by Spotify themselves. Most likely people are not even looking at the names of songs and artists when the slop playlist they are listening to is playing as background noise. > That is the issue. But then again HN is a place where people really don't mind if companies break laws on an epic scale, destroy worker protections, and deliver worse products like AI chatbots replacing human support, if customers don't really notice. If you saw my comment history, you would be surprised. The problem here is that users are actively listening to slop, but they don't seem to mind it. They are fine with slop. They keep listening to slop. For those users, it really does not matter. There is no abuse taking place. I am a Spotify user. I think their app is bloated, but it works alright? I can find albums I like, I can create my own playlists, and I can completely ignore whatever Spotify generates I always did. How exactly are they abusive in their relationship with me as a customer? What you are really angry with is that Spotify found a way to give users that are fine with slop their own cheap slop.

throw646577 2y ago
> Does the contract say anywhere that Spotify would never provide their own generated music to users of their platform? > If the contract between artists and platform provides no such limitations, I fail to see how anyone is being defrauded of anything. Then why does Spotify refuse to talk about it? It's clearly outside of the spirit of the deal they are striking with artists generally. Ultimately, they will get away with it because of just the same quasi-justification you're offering: Oh we're not screwing any of them individually, we are screwing them all at once. Congratulations I guess, your argument is on the winning side! But certainly Congress, the UK parliament, EU parliament, Swedish parliament etc. should be looking at this through the lens of regulation and competition law. And for once I hope the record labels -- big and small, because so many of them are small -- sue.
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  I see you toned down the "defrauded" rhetoric to a much more ambiguous "yeah, it was against the spirit of the deal". I am always in favor of proper regulation. If the EU sees this as abusive and detrimental to competition, they should definitely put restrictions on platforms offering their own content. I wonder if this would extend to, say, supermarkets offering products under their own brands. It is important that regulations don't harm the consumers. As for record labels suing... Well, they will have this problem which is proving that any fraud took place. Unless the numbers were rigged (and no users actually streamed the slop, and it was actually fraud), I fail to see how they would win anything. What would be the allegation? That users are listening to bad music?
  - throw646577 2y ago
    > I see you toned down the "defrauded" rhetoric to a much more ambiguous "yeah, it was against the spirit of the deal". I didn't, particularly. It's just another angle on it. I do think "defrauded" has both legal and moral dimensions, don't you? This is obviously abject shitty treatment or they wouldn't have been secretive about it. I'm not convinced this isn't both dimensions, though -- not clear who is being defrauded but both the labels and the musicians unions should do their best to establish whether it could be them. Spotify have crossed a pretty obvious line here. Weird that you appear to think it's, like, no harm no foul if the customers don't notice. Fast food service logic. There is already quite extensive legal precedent and practice about supermarket own-brand stuff; fifty years of it, with supermarkets retaining teams of lawyers, operating proper clean-room reverse-engineering processes, etc. It's well-trodden legal territory. Supermarkets work right up to the line. But it's no secret that they do, and brands sometimes push back against own-brand deceptions. Mostly supermarkets threaten each other over their own, own-brand stuff. Caterpillar cakes, vodkas etc. If Spotify were honest that they were adding "own brand" music into the mix, then this would be a different discussion. (Amazon are required in the UK and EU to identify which are their own brands, and they mostly comply)