Spotify shuts down service in Russia. Pretend artists in the shout again. Amazon launches the Spotlight messaging feature. Warner is investing in the AI ​​service LifeScore. That and other things from Daniel Johansson.

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Spotify has decided to shut down the service completely in Russia, after previously closing offices and taking a break from the Premium subscription. The decision on a complete shutdown comes after Russia introduced legislation that could give up to fifteen years in prison for people who spread information about the war in Ukraine that Russian authorities disapprove of, such as to call it just a war.

Spotify says in a statement that due to the new legislation, it is not possible to maintain the safety of the staff or even the listeners:

Spotify has continued to believe that it is critically important to try to keep our service operational in Russia to provide trusted, independent news and information in the region. Unfortunately, recently enacted legislation further restricting access to information, eliminating free expression, and criminalizing certain types of news puts the safety of Spotify's employees and possibly even our listeners at risk. After carefully considering our options and the current circumstances, we have come to the difficult decision to fully suspend our service in Russia. ”

Spotify has already said that the shutdown will mean that it loses 1.5 million. paying subscribers in Russia. It has not been said how many free users will disappear in addition to that, but going on a global average should mean that another couple of million users will disappear in Russia.

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At the same time, in the US, Spotify enters into a partnership with Walmart , which means that those who are members of the bonus program Walmart + receive Spotify Premium for free for six months. The offer only applies to customers who have not previously been registered for Spotify Premium.

According to eMarketer , Spotify had 83 million active users in the US in the fall of 2021. The US has a population of 330 million so there is still room for growth.

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During the week, Dagens Nyheter released an article in which they reviewed a large amount of music from the company Firefly Entertainment , and stated that many of the artists do not exist "for real", but are the alter ego of about twenty other music creators. The music has generated good revenue for the company, which according to the DN article had sales of SEK 65 million in 2020.

The article states that a named former employee of Spotify would have made it possible for Firefly's music to end up on important playlists, something that both Spotify and Firefly deny. Spotify tells DN:

“Spotify's editorial decision is based on what appeals to the listeners of each playlist. Our editors are experts in different cultures and genres and look at several factors such as data, research, trends and taste to make their decisions. ”

Firefly in turn says:

There is no direct relationship with Spotify or any other way that may affect the playlists. Regarding the number of songs on Spotify's playlists, we refer to Spotify which controls the process for how songs end up on playlists. And we also want to strongly deny that there would be any kind of connection to Nick Holmstén, who left Spotify in 2019, which would affect our business. ”

Svenska Dagbladet also has an article on the subject, about Christer Sandelin , who built up the company Chillmi together with e.g. his son. According to the article, Sandelin was asked directly from Spotify in 2015 if he could create music for specific playlists at Spotify.

Basically, there are a couple of different things that can be discussed:

- What is the main purpose behind creating pretend artists?

Pretending to be an artist who does not really exist is in itself neither illegal nor unusual. Pseudonyms and alter egos have flourished extensively in the music business, who does not remember Philemon Arthur and the Dung ? The question this may be about is whether Firefly (and others) create these "artists" for the purpose of tricking Spotify into putting the Verified Artist stamp on hundreds of non-existent artists?

If this is the main purpose behind the fictional narrative for hundreds of artists, rather than perhaps just not wanting to reveal who is the "real" artist (something that anyone is free to decide for themselves), you can imagine that Spotify have a little difficulty liking the exercise. After all, it erodes the whole concept of having "verified" artists.

- What criteria actually govern Spotify's selection mechanisms?

Spotify's own playlists have a great impact and therefore it becomes important to understand which mechanisms control the selection. This of course applies to both algorithmic and editorial playlists. To DagensPS , Spotify writes regarding Chillmi:

“The editors of our playlists make their programming decisions based on the music that is appreciated by their listeners, and make constant updates based on the listeners' response. Obviously, there is a demand for music that is specially created to suit special occasions or activities. This music, like all other music on Spotify, is licensed by rights holders and we pay them a license fee for their music. "

The question then is whether the "programming decisions" are based solely on independent musical criteria, or whether there are also financial motives of their own? Throughout history, radio as well as television and other media have had great power over which artists make an impact. The editors of radio channels have acted as direct gatekeepers, something that editorial functions for playlists do today.

But, if certain people or companies get preference based on friendships, or various forms of itching on their backs, or pure "order jobs", Spotify goes from being an agnostic democratic platform to consciously favoring certain actors, and in that case it is similar to old school payola , something that is generally strongly disliked in the music industry.

I think that Spotify could benefit enormously from creating a "transparency investment" around its playlist editors, and clarifying the criteria on which the selections for their own playlists are based. They have had the Behind the Playlists project , but those articles and interviews do not seem to have reached out properly.

It's a bit sad that there always have to be headlines before anything happens, whether it's what led to Spotify for Artists, Joe Rogan Experience and guidelines for podcasts, purchased streams or something else.

So, my tip: Create the subpage https://playlists.spotify.com which, like the investment in Loud & Clear , to explain how money is distributed, clearly shows how selection is done and what criteria govern the various playlists (both among humans and algorithms ), which perhaps every week or month highlights editors through interviews, without disclosing information that could ruin their privacy.

I mean, being the editor of a monster playlist on Spotify means a lot of power today, and people with power should not be secret types who act in the dark. I think.

Of course, this should also be seen in the light of the fact that Spotify actually wants to make money on its selection features, such as. the recent discussion about Discovery Mode , an advertising model where music owners can waive revenue to get better exposure of "priority" songs on personalized playlists. Or as Spotify itself writes:

Discovery Mode is a marketing tool that helps your music get heard when audiences are most open to discovery. Artists and labels identify songs that are a priority for them, and our system will add that signal to the algorithms that determine personalized listening sessions. ”

No one can say anything negative about entrepreneurs like Firefly or Chillmi succeeding in creating music that draws in good money. On the contrary, I think both actors seem to show evidence of the kind of creativity that has always been rewarded in the music industry.

If, on the other hand, you have got your own bus file for work, or create artist narratives to lure an "quality label" or some form of cultural preference, then I think you can turn a deaf ear. Or as an experienced songwriter I know said:

"Every day I see female artists, songwriters and producers trying to reach out with their music and fighting for every single stream. That then three guys in Karlstad can pretend to be a female artist and get hundreds of thousands of streams? It may not be illegal, but it is offensive. "

DN: The Swedish fake artists who took over on Spotify - bigger than Robyn

SVD: Got billions of gigs - with fictional artists

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The Swedish sample platform Tracklib has started a collaboration with Serato on "beat-making sessions" every week, including a competition on Twitch and Discord . The series is called Seratos Kitchen , and during each month the sessions are hosted by recognized producers.

Every week a new "sample of the week" is presented which the participants will try to make something fun of and participate in the competition. Winners are announced via Serato's channels. Producers who "cough" include Wize, Austin Millz, and Dibia $ e .

Pӓr Almqvist , CEO of Tracklib, says:

- Tracklib has decades of amazing ingredients for beats, from legendary 70s soul and funk to anime to hot new stems from producers like Frank Dukes. We're eager to hear how producers use our catalog and Serato Studio to make something new.

www.tracklib.com

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In 2021, Amazon revealed that it would introduce the ability for all artists with more than 3,000 followers to record a personal message that is played before a song, album or other. The new feature is called Spotlight , and is now launched.

So far, one and the same artist can only have one recorded message to use on all their music at the same time. In addition to the artist being able to use the short message to advertise upcoming concerts and tours, it is conceivable that artists can use the display space to update their fans on news.

Amazon Music is based on markets such as the USA and Japan a lot on people using Alexa , and the hope is that fans will now use Alexa and to be able to quickly get news updates about the artist, by e.g. say "Alexa, play * Artist * Spotlight on Amazon Music".

More info at Amazon Musics FAQ

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A number of investors, including Warner Music Group , have invested the equivalent of SEK 100 million in the AI ​​company LifeScore . Other investors include Octopus Ventures, 4 Good Ventures and Metaplanet Holdings .

LifeScore creates adaptive music on demand based on user preferences, but uses "real" recordings. They themselves describe it as follows:

From the iconic Abbey Road Studios in London, we work with world-class musicians and composers to record and compose musical building blocks. That musical raw material is then processed by our proprietary AI platform to generate soundtracks that adapt to the listener's environment and inputs, creating an authentic and interactive musical experience that is unique every time you engage it. ”

The investment will be used to accelerate growth globally.

www.lifescoremusic.com

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Both Chartmetric and Soundcharts have introduced cheaper variants of their statistics subscriptions, which are for individual artists. Chartmetric calls the subscription Artist Plan and Soundcharts calls it Soundcharts For Artists. Both subscriptions cost $ 10 a month, and thus only apply to all data about a single artist.

Both Chartmetric and Soundcharts aggregate lots of data from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, TikTok, Intagram and other platforms, and make it possible to get a good picture of how music is consumed, demographics among fans and much more.

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ICE , the collaboration between STIM, PRS and GEMA , has hired a new technical manager, Govinda Fichtner . In connection with this, the organization reveals that it has now distributed 2.3 billion euros to rights holders since the start in 2015. Fichtner's background is in cloud-based businesses, and he himself comments on the new job:

- From the start I was attracted to this unique opportunity to help evolve ICE for the future. A key part of this exciting mission is the strategic capability to work efficiently with huge amounts of data - be it copyright or DSP usage. Clearly, the best IT foundation to support a scalable 24/7 system has a cloud-based infrastructure. With over 15 years' experience in building cloud-based solutions, I am really looking forward to applying this experience to create a very strong technology foundation for the future of ICE.

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During a period in the 00's, the file-sharing program Limewire was one of the big problems, mainly for the American music industry where Limewire became very popular after Napster was forced to close in 2001. The producers of the program were finally shut down in 2010 and forced to shut down the file-sharing network.

Limewire has now re-emerged, but as a platform for trading NFTs. In a way, it is logical that old file-sharing brands are dusted off in the new NFT reality, even NFTs are based on decentralization and P2P.

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BandLab has launched SongStarter , a tool that will help music creators who are stuck and feel that creativity does not really flow to, so-called "writers block". The tool is a collaboration with Google, based on TensorFlow, and creates beats, melodies and chord sequences based on user input.

The idea is that SongStarter will act as a co-creator in the studio, and somewhat mimic the process that takes place when conducting songwriting sessions. But it is easier than that, after you have registered you can only roll a couple of virtual dice and back comes a first suggestion that you can continue working on.

Meng Ru Kuok , CEO of BandLab, says:

- We are thrilled to launch SongStarter. It's like having inspiration on-demand. Our team designed just the solution for those personal 'eureka' moments. SongStarter is fun to experiment with and serves as a resource that creators can keep coming back to again and again. The musical possibilities are endless.

https://www.bandlab.com/songstarter

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Justin Bieber's entire discography is now available in spatial sound on Apple Music . Justin Bieber says in an official comment through Apple:

- I'm happy to share all my songs that are now mixed for Apple Music's Spatial Sound with Dolby Atmos. It's amazing that fans can now experience my music with the same quality and dynamics that we hear in the studio.

https://apple.co/justinbieber

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Another platform for creating royalty-free music using AI has received money. This time it is Beatoven who gets SEK 10 million to take their platform to the next level.

https://www.beatoven.ai/

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Reading Tips: Developing Trends in the Music Sync Space - A Worldwide Conversation With Leading Female Music Supervisors