Comment by troupo
1 day ago
> operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly.
As I already wrote elsewhere, no one, including the article's own authors, understood a single thing from the article.
Spotify doesn't produce its own music. It licenses 100% of its music from external distributors. Apart from a few scammy companies there are dozens of companies whose entire repertoire and catalog is ambient/background/noise/elevator/shopping mall music etc. that they commission from ghost composers.
There is literally money being paid to distributors for these tracks. To quote the original article you didn't even read, this one: https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...
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Epidemic’s selling point is that the music is royalty-free for its own subscribers, but it does collect royalties from streaming services; these it splits with artists fifty-fifty.
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Wait, what about "no royalties" crap? Oh, all of that is just "per Pelly". Though I'll admit that there are probably companies that license music for a flat fee (though I assume those would be rare).
Also note: Spotify doesn't pay artists. Spotify doesn't have direct contracts with artists. Spotify pays distributors and rights holders. And then those, in turn, pay royalties based on their contracts with artists. (According to one of the ghost artists interviewed, he is paid significantly more than he would be if he was trying to release music himself, BTW).
Erm... things are a bit more complicated than you make them out to be and I'm afraid you do not really know a lot about how all of this works (me neither, btw, this is all very, very messy). It is correct that Spotify pays artists through distributors (and they partly own one, Distrokid, but that's another story) or labels. But there are usually also royalties that need to be paid for songwriting, lyrics and performance, which can (and often do) go to different people. This is extremely complicated and different from country to country, but completely separate from the distributor. The artist/lyricist/performer will receive these royalties (if they registered for it) from entirely different institutions. This is the prime advantage of "royalty-free" music - you need to pay only the artist (or their representation like distributor/label), either flat or per stream/performance/whatever... So in summary: yes, Spotify most definitely saves a ton of money with steering people towards this kind of stuff. I also wouldn't be surprised at all if they actually just pay flat fees for that junk.
>Spotify doesn't pay artists.
So Indiy artists can't directly put their music on Spotify? Sorry I have no idea how this works, I guess that's the point of Bandcamp?
> So Indiy artists can't directly put their music on Spotify?
No one can put their music directly on Spotify.
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https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/getting-music...
Distributors handle music distribution and pay streaming royalties.
Work with a distributor to get your music on Spotify.
# Choose a distributor
See our preferred and recommended distributors: https://artists.spotify.com/providers
These distributors meet our highest standards for quality metadata and anti-infringement measures.
Note: Most distributors charge a fee or commission. Each service is unique, so do a little research before picking one.
If you’re a signed artist, your record label likely already works with a distributor who can deliver your music.
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