Indie funk band Vulfpeck hacked the Spotify royalty system in order to fund a tour of free concerts. Spotify pays 0.5 cents for every track that is played for at least 30 seconds. Vulfpeck's latest album, "Sleepify" is 10 tracks of silence lasting 31-32 seconds each. The band asked fans to put the album on repeat and play it while they slept.
So far, they've racked up over $20,000 in royalties, but Spotify isn't so happy about the situation. Now the hard part is getting Spotify to actually pay out so that fans can see the band live.
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One of the latest beneficiaries of sharing music online, according to TorrentFreak, turns out to be the streaming music service Spotify:
Without The Pirate Bay, Spotify may have never turned into the success it is today. Ten years ago record labels were so desperate to find an answer to the ever-growing piracy problem that they agreed to take a gamble. Now, more than a decade later, Spotify has turned into a billion-dollar company, with pirate roots.
Last autumn the EU suppressed a 300-page copyright study showing yet again that copyright infringement does not harm sales. It often helps sales. Both factors have been known for a long time, with other studies going back to the 1990s.
Earlier on SN:
- Spotify Files for IPO After Losing $1.5 Billion in 2017
- Spotify Raises Cash to Fight Apple for Streaming Music Market
- Band Earns $20K for Silent Album on Spotify
(Score: 4, Funny) by Thexalon on Thursday May 08 2014, @01:54PM
John Cage's estate has now sued the band for copyright infringement, for their performing of excerpts from 4' 33" [youtube.com] without proper royalties.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GlennC on Thursday May 08 2014, @01:55PM
That's an old-school hack right there!
I highly doubt that the band will see any money from it, but they've got their name out there.
What it's worth is debatable, however.
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday May 08 2014, @03:29PM
Maybe it worth something.
I went to their site [vulfpeck.com], heard some of their songs on YouTube (not the Sleepify, no) and liked them enough to buy an album on bandcamp.com (discovered bandcamp [bandcamp.com] in the process).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Thursday May 08 2014, @06:17PM
Then it had a positive effect for you, the band, and Bandcamp.
Excellent!
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Oligonicella on Thursday May 08 2014, @02:02PM
This is a blatant scam and any attempt by the band to win money in court would fail. The fact that they urged fans to cooperate is the lynch that will kill it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 08 2014, @02:18PM
Any artist could be deprieved of their income using that argument.
What is advertising, if not urging fans to listen to your album? (It used to be "buy your album", but we are talking about a subscriptions system).
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday May 08 2014, @05:28PM
I think that spotify will not make it seem like they are judging the content of the songs, because they have no rights in interfering with that.
But if in the contract with spotify there are some terms that imply that the downloads must be tied to some "listening", not be fake or automated, they just need to ask google if some user went to work while the albums kept on playing.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by jimshatt on Thursday May 08 2014, @06:47PM
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday May 09 2014, @07:15AM
Kids these days!
"Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to talk to you again," " the Sounds, of Silence"!!!
If any on-line music distribution company is stupid enough leave an opening like this, and is not either Google or Pirate Bay, I say they deserve whatever they get. I can listen to silence! I can do it all day! In repeat mode! And I dare you to prove that I did not!
(Scenario 1#) Mr. Aristarchus. . .
Me: that is Dr. Aristarchus to you, you, what are you , anyway?
Spotifer: Did you, or did you not listen to the aforementioned artists when they were playing nothing on tracks one through ten of their new album on our site?
Me: Yes.
Spotifier: What did you hear?
Me: Well, nothing.
Spotifier: How could you hear nothing?
Me: Well, it was quite different from the other trash on your site, which, to put it mildly, sounds quite different. In fact, I would say all you other tracks are noise by comparison.
Spotifier to Counsel, aside: (Is there some way we can disqualify this user from the witness list?)
Case dismissed.
(Score: 1) by Oligonicella on Thursday May 08 2014, @06:55PM
Bullshit. This is a set of blank tracks, taking no talent or work and created expressly for the purpose of this scam. Other musicians aren't doing that sort of thing. A pathetic attempt on your part at supporting a scammer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 09 2014, @12:47AM
If other artists aren't doing it, it would indicate a high level of originality.
How do you feel about an artist making a canvas totally blank, is that a scam if someone is willing to pay for it or is it simply a form of expression that could be classified as art?
Trying to decide for others what is and isn't art is a very backwards attitude and do I feel bad for the music industry that someone found a way to work the current system? Well no, I don't feel bad about that, in fact I like it, just that act itself is a piece of art in it's own right.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Thursday May 08 2014, @02:50PM
Why is this a "blatant scam"? Musicians have used silence as a part of songs before, this is just taking that idea to an extreme (although it's been done before; someone already mentioned 4'33"). Also, the fact that it fits within Spotify's rules means that Spotify *should* have to pay out on it. If Spotify doesn't like that, they shouldn't have set up rules that allow it; and if they don't want to pay out for future musicians doing the same thing, they need to change the rules to disallow it (some sort of minimum track value or something as part of the rules).
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday May 08 2014, @03:28PM
There's nothing so deep here, just an admittedly clever attempt to game Spotify's system to their advantage in a very similar manner to click-fraud, only using their fans as members of the botnet. It'll be interesting to see how Spotify responds beyond an obvious adjustment to their Ts&Cs, but I suspect the courts will get involved before any potential payout.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 08 2014, @03:52PM
Beg your pardon? Maybe their fans really liked the Vulf's flavor of silence, just enough to listen to it again and again? De gustibus non disputandum... you know?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Thursday May 08 2014, @04:05PM
Allowing for the slightly over 30s length tracks, that's about 50c/hr for each person that actually did as requested, none of whom actually "listened" to most of the tracks because they were asleep. I actually don't think it's any of Spotify's business whether people actually listen to the tracks they choose to stream or not, but I also suspect this idea is going to become unstuck on the grounds that not only have they incited their fans to do this for material gain but also admitted as much.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by skullz on Thursday May 08 2014, @04:50PM
So if someone is lucky enough to get 8 hours of sleep and does this for 20 days a month Spotify owes about $96 to the band. Seeing as a monthly subscription costs about $10 I can see why Spotify would be mad that they gamed the system.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 08 2014, @10:40PM
Well, their musical interpretation may promote a better sleep, as the title of their album suggests - wasn't it clinically proven that silence does this?
Yeah, I'm with you. Bands that advertise to their fan base for material gain should be banned. For a starter. Then, we can look which other type advertising we should banned next, like... I don't know... Spotify's ads?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Funny) by wantkitteh on Thursday May 08 2014, @04:12PM
It sounds totally awesome through just the right combination of audio condensers and Monster cables.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Thursday May 08 2014, @06:10PM
> It'll be interesting to see how Spotify responds beyond an obvious adjustment to their Ts&Cs,
After thinking about it for a while I'm having a really hard time coming up with a way to stop this sort of thing, either technically or legally. The best I can come up with is a limit on the total hours of music per month.
Presumably they have to pay the same amount of money no matter what music is playing, so the problem isn't so much the single album on repeat, it is the extended playing time. What's the difference between some unbalanced individual listening to lady gaga 24x7 and what happened here? Technically no difference, so it comes down to intent and that's a really grey area. If the band were just slightly less straight-forward about their goal - like making their songs recordings of light breezes - then it would be plausible that some people were listening to it as background sounds all day and night. With millions of customers, Spotify would eventually piss off enough people by shutting down any specific genre of recordings that it would be bad PR. "First they came for John Cage..."
(Score: 1) by Jtmach on Thursday May 08 2014, @06:39PM
You're thinking way to hard. This is easy to defeat technologically. The simplest way would just be to disable repeat. They could also pause it after so many plays, and ask the user if they are still listening. Just like Pandora does. They don't need a solution to people starting it and walking away, they just need to stop things from playing over and over while no one is paying attention.
(Score: 2) by Angry Jesus on Thursday May 08 2014, @07:14PM
> This is easy to defeat technologically. The simplest way would just be to disable repeat.
That's just an escalation in the arms race. The band just needs so many tracks that it takes hours or days to repeat.
> They could also pause it after so many plays, and ask the user if they are still listening.
That breaks the usage model for stand-alone players like sonos. [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Thursday May 08 2014, @07:01PM
I think Spotify's business model might have hit a small problem here, and it's going to be interesting to see what they try and do to fix the problem without alienating their customers.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by lhsi on Thursday May 08 2014, @02:03PM
If they wanted to get something played multiple times, why not ask fans to "play" the songs with the device volume on mute? The shorter length means you get more "plays" in for the same duration of time I suppose.
I wonder if the silence also got them additional "listens". If the song has to play for a certain length of time without being stopped or skipped, the silence could potentially go by unnoticed, depending on what the listener was doing. I know I've had music on in the background while doing something else and then realise that it has been quiet for 5 minutes as I hadn't noticed the music stopped.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 08 2014, @03:33PM
Yes, I would have used a single tone either at the bottom or top of the audio range, for 31s per song, and let the users decide if they want to mute or not.
Go ahead and tell me that does not qualify as "music". I'll make a Music Video of each showing a still picture of a girl's bikini. I can make up as much BS as you can digest about it being a "statement" and "parody"...
(Score: 1) by hoochiecoochieman on Thursday May 08 2014, @03:59PM
Spotify detects if you're on mute. If you do it during advertisements, they pause them until you enable sound again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Thursday May 08 2014, @04:37PM
I guess few people have old school speakers, which have a power button and volume control
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday May 08 2014, @05:26PM
Sounds like a good time to use per-application volume controls to crank it down to 1/1000 volume.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 1) by khedoros on Thursday May 08 2014, @06:59PM
(Score: 4, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday May 08 2014, @03:03PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 08 2014, @05:51PM
G3nki: my printer is printing subliminal messages on my paper ...o_O
Keerax:
G3nki: it's printing out "Join the Military!"
G3nki: like cutting half of it at the top of the page
Keerax: yvan eht nioj
G3nki: never!
(Score: 1) by cafebabe on Saturday May 10 2014, @07:52PM
Does this album infringe on the copyright of the mime album The Best Of Marcel Marceau [superseventies.com]?
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