Comment by troupo

> Ultimately they're trying to get generic music for cheap to reduce royalty payments to artists.

1. Spotify doesn't pay artists. Spotify doesn't have direct contracts with artists. Spotify pays rights holder and distributors.

I really wish people who have strong opinions on music industry learned at least the absolute bare minimum about the subject.

2. Again, bringing back to my original comment: where's the evidence for that? E.g. the one and only article everyone links [1] and doesn't bother to understand literally has statements like this:

--- start quote ---

But at the end of the day, [the ghost musician] said, it was still a paycheck: “I did it because I needed a job real bad and the money was better than any money I could make from even successful indie labels, many of which I worked with,” he told me.

...

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.

--- end quote ---

That doesn't mesh well with the narrative of "Spotify bad, doesn't pay royalties, etc.", does it?

[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machin...