Spotify

musi-fans-refuse-to-update-iphones-until-apple-unblocks-controversial-app

Musi fans refuse to update iPhones until Apple unblocks controversial app

App Store, Apple, copyright infringement, copyright law, musi, music streaming, Policy, Spotify, youtube, youtube music / /

“The public interest in the preservation of intellectual property rights weighs heavily against the injunction sought here, which would force Apple to distribute an app over the repeated and consistent objections of non-parties who allege their rights are infringed by the app,” Apple argued.

Musi fans vow loyalty

For Musi fans expressing their suffering on Reddit, Musi appears to be irreplaceable.

Unlike other free apps that continually play ads, Musi only serves ads when the app is initially opened, then allows uninterrupted listening. One Musi user also noted that Musi allows for an unlimited number of videos in a playlist, where YouTube caps playlists at 5,000 videos.

“Musi is the only playback system I have to play all 9k of my videos/songs in the same library,” the Musi fan said. “I honestly don’t just use Musi just cause it’s free. It has features no other app has, especially if you like to watch music videos while you listen to music.”

“Spotify isn’t cutting it,” one Reddit user whined.

“I hate Spotify,” another user agreed.

“I think of Musi every other day,” a third user who apparently lost the app after purchasing a new phone said. “Since I got my new iPhone, I have to settle for other music apps just to get by (not enough, of course) to listen to music in my car driving. I will be patiently waiting once Musi is available to redownload.”

Some Musi fans who still have access gloat in the threads, while others warn the litigation could soon doom the app for everyone.

Musi continues to perhaps optimistically tell users that the app is coming back, reassuring anyone whose app was accidentally offloaded that their libraries remain linked through iCloud and will be restored if it does.

Some users buy into Musi’s promises, while others seem skeptical that Musi can take on Apple. To many users still clinging to their Musi app, updating their phones has become too risky until the litigation resolves.

“Please,” one Musi fan begged. “Musi come back!!!”

Musi fans refuse to update iPhones until Apple unblocks controversial app Read More »

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Spotify’s Car Thing, due for bricking, is getting an open source second life

car thing, e-waste, gaming, Spotify, spotify car thing / /

Spotify has lost all enthusiasm for the little music devices it sold for just half a year. Firmware hackers, as usually happens, have a lot more interest and have stepped in to save, and upgrade, a potentially useful gadget.

Spotify’s idea a couple years ago was a car-focused device for those who lacked Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, or built-in Spotify support in their vehicles, or just wanted a dedicated Spotify screen. The Car Thing was a $100 doodad with a 4-inch touchscreen and knob that attached to the dashboard (or into a CD slot drive). All it could do was play Spotify, and only if you were a paying member, but that could be an upgrade for owners of older cars, or people who wanted a little desktop music controller.

But less than half a year after it fully released its first hardware device, Spotify gave up on the Car Thing due to “several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues.” A Spotify rep told Ars that the Car Thing was meant “to learn more about how people listen in the car,” and now it was “time to say goodbye to the devices entirely.” Spotify indicated it would offer refunds, though not guaranteed, and moved forward with plans to brick the device in December 2024.

It was always open source, just not publicly

Enter Dammit Jeff, a YouTuber who dove into his device and shows off some alternative software ideas for it (as we first saw on Adafruit’s blog). He even likes the little thing, noting that its wheel feels great, and that the four buttons on the top—originally meant for favorite playlists—present a lot of possibilities.

Spotify’s Car Thing, due for bricking, is getting an open source second life Read More »

spotify-criticized-for-letting-fake-albums-appear-on-real-artist-pages

Spotify criticized for letting fake albums appear on real artist pages

fraud, Policy, Spotify, streaming fraud, Streaming Music / /

Will the real Spotify artist please stand up?

Real bands struggle to remove fake albums from their Spotify pages.

Psych rock band Gong found out about a fake album on their Spotify page while on tour. Credit: via Gong

This fall, thousands of fake albums were added to Spotify, with some appearing on real artist pages, where they’re positioned to lure unsuspecting listeners into streaming by posing as new releases from favorite bands.

An Ars reader flagged the issue after finding a fake album on the Spotify page of an UK psych rock band called Gong. The Gong fan knew that the band had begun touring again after a surprise new release last year, but the “latest release” listed by Spotify wasn’t that album. Instead, at the top of Gong’s page was a fake self-titled album supposedly released in 2024.

The real fan detected the fake instantly, and not just because the generic electronic music sounded nothing like Gong’s experimental sounds. The album’s cover also gave the scheme away, using a generic font and neon stock image that invoked none of the trippy imagery that characterized Gong’s typical album covers.

Ars confirmed with Gong member Dave Sturt that the self-titled item was an obvious fake on Monday. At that time, Sturt said the band was working to get the junk album removed from its page, but as of Tuesday morning, that album remained online, along with hundreds of other albums uploaded by a fake label that former Spotify data “alchemist” Glenn McDonald flagged in a social media post that Spotify seemingly ignored.

Hey @Spotify, you got thousands of junk albums with real artist names from “Ancient Lake Records”, “Beat Street Music” and “Gupta Music” today.

— glenn mcdonald (@glenn_mcdonald) October 11, 2024

On his site, McDonald gathered the junk album data by label, noting that Beat Street Music, which has no web presence but released the fake Gong album, uploaded 240 junk albums on Friday alone. Similarly, Ancient Lake Records uploaded 471 albums on Friday. And Gupta Music added 483 just a few days prior, along with 600 junk albums from Future Jazz Records uploaded between September 30 and October 8.

These junk albums don’t appear to be specifically targeting popular artists, McDonald told Ars. Rather, generic music is uploaded under a wide range of one-word artist names. However, by using that tactic, some of these fake albums appeared on real artist pages, such as Gong, experimental rock band Swans, and English rock bands Asia and Yes. And that oversight is on Spotify, McDonald suggested.

“Given the scale of output and the randomness of the names, my guess is that the owners of this stuff might not even have intended it to end up on existing artist profiles,” McDonald told Ars. “If they just submitted stuff with artist names, not IDs, then it’s the streaming service’s problem to match those names to profiles, and thus the streaming service’s fault for not figuring out that these are not by the real Yes, Asia, Gong, Swans, etc.”

McDonald told Ars that “the labels should have been a pretty obvious clue in this case” that the album uploads weren’t genuine releases.

“If I still worked there, I would also have immediately scoured the input databases for more releases with the same patterns,” McDonald told Ars. “The stuff I found from those few labels might be only a tiny fraction of the crap.”

A spokesperson told Ars that Spotify is investigating the junk albums that McDonald flagged. It may take time for all albums to be removed from artists’ pages.

“We are aware of the issue, have relocated the content in question, and are considering our further options against the providing licensor,” Spotify’s spokesperson said. “When we identify or are alerted to attempts by bad actors to game the system, we take action that may include removing stream counts and withholding royalties. Spotify invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect, and mitigate the impact of bad actors attempting to collect unearned royalties.”

Spotify seems to turn blind eye to fake albums

McDonald helped Spotify crunch streaming data for a decade before leaving the company in March. He documented his experience in his 2024 book You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song, which discusses how Spotify deals with streaming fraud.

According to McDonald, “streaming music fraud is not, to be brutally honest, the most glamorous or profitable form of villainy” because “streaming rewards accumulate in tiny micro-transactions.” The only way to get rich is to scale the shady streaming by becoming a business—it seems possible due to similarities in thousands of fake album designs that all the labels McDonald flagged could be under one licensor—but even then, “the larger the scale, the easier it is to detect,” McDonald suggested.

“Abuse at any productive scale almost always ends up revealing itself to somebody,” McDonald wrote, noting that “if the money can find you, so can consequences.”

McDonald told Ars that when he worked at Spotify, he “maintained some dashboards to watch for this sort of thing before the releases went live.” But with so much fraud seemingly going undetected now, McDonald guesses that maybe Spotify “didn’t keep those tools running” after he left.

In his book, McDonald noted that this kind of fraud impacting real artists is often detected by fans, like the Gong fan who reached out to Ars. On Reddit, a fan of dubstep artist Cyclops and soul band Maze criticized Spotify for doing nothing about the same batch of fraudulent uploads that McDonald flagged, despite multiple fan reports.

“If dubious junk shows up on real artist pages, people notice,” McDonald wrote.

In his book, McDonald suggested that the odds of profiting from music streaming fraud have seemingly gotten worse because of authorities cracking down on bad actors and streaming services strengthening fraud prevention teams as generative AI makes streaming music fraud easier than ever.

But even with stronger fraud prevention tools, Spotify seemingly does not immediately respond even when junk albums are flagged directly by artists with tens of thousands of monthly listeners, like Gong. And Spotify also does not seem to bother to trace reported fakes the way McDonald might have to rapidly detect even broader patterns of abuse impacting bands with millions of monthly listeners like Yes or Asia.

Spotify currently seems much quicker to act to detect fake listeners—at times removing music by artists who later prove they committed no fraud, Variety reported in April. To deter that threat, the streaming music service recently started charging “distributors $10 for every track that it has detected accruing significant numbers of artificial streams,” Variety reported. Perhaps eventually, Spotify will crack down just as hard on fake albums.

For now, artists can use a form to report when their music is “mixed up with another artist,” a Spotify support page says.

But there’s no obvious way to flag fake albums on the platform. Sturt told Ars that Gong became aware of the issue on their Spotify page in the middle of a US tour, thanks to “wonderful fans.” He said that Spotify should make it easier for bands to report bogus albums, telling Ars, “it’s hard enough in this industry to get our music heard without Spotify allowing this sort of thing to happen.” As Gong prepares for a new release in 2025, the band recommended that fans consult its site for official information rather than trusting Spotify.

Photo of Ashley Belanger

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Spotify criticized for letting fake albums appear on real artist pages Read More »

spotify-raising-prices-by-up-to-$3-as-frustrated-subs-beg-it-to-“just-do-music”

Spotify raising prices by up to $3 as frustrated subs beg it to “just do music”

Spotify, streaming, Tech / /

As high as $20/month —

Spotify last raised prices in July 2023.

–

Spotify raising prices by up to $3 as frustrated subs beg it to “just do music”

After keeping Spotify Premium subscription pricing flat since debuting it in 2011, Spotify increased monthly pricing in July 2023 and will do so again in July 2024, it announced today.

Individual monthly subscriptions will increase from $11 per month to $12/month. Family plans, which support up to six members, will go from $17/month to $20/month. Duo plans, for two accounts, are rising from $15/month to $17/month. Spotify didn’t announce pricing changes for its Student ($6/month) or free plans.

Spotify said it’s increasing prices so that it can “continue to invest in and innovate on our product features and bring users the best experience.”

It said it would email subscribers directly “over the next month” about the changes. The message that Spotify said it will send to subscribers will include a link to the account page, where subscribers can cancel their subscription if desired, as well as the support site for asking questions.

“Just do music”

Spotify went 12 years without changing subscription prices, but now it’s doing it for a second time in about a year.

In July 2023, monthly pricing for Spotify’s Premium plan for individual users went from $10 to $11. Duo pricing went from $13 to $15, and the Family and Student plans also each increased by $1 per month. However, these sweeping pricing changes occurred at a time when rivals, like Tidal, were making similar changes. And as Spotify’s first price hike ever, it seemed more digestible.

The second price hike comes as Spotify seeks its first year of profitability. These efforts have included attempts to diversify revenue by expanding from Spotify’s traditional music-streaming service to include things like podcasts, which Spotify has reportedly invested over $1 billion in, and audiobooks, a newer business for Spotify that it fueled with a $123 million Findaway acquisition. Meanwhile, Spotify has been working on adding high-fidelity audio to its service since 2021.

Some subscribers would rather see predictable pricing than new endeavors. For example, a reported user going by “ccolburn” on Spotify’s online forum reacted to this news with a post titled, “I only want music only! Stop increasing the prices to justify adding things I don’t want!“:

I DONT want podcast in my music app. … I dont want audio books when I want music. I also dont wanna pay more for the same service. JUST DO MUSIC!!!! [sic]

Apparent subscribers have shared similar sentiments elsewhere online, like on Reddit, where “crazytalk151” recently wrote:

Can you just do music and stop with all the other crap? No I dont want your shit podcasts or audio books. Just music and the same price. Whats the best alternative? [sic]

A tightrope

But like with many subscription price hikes among streaming services, Spotify’s growing prices are tied to profitability goals. Despite having profitable quarters, the 18-year-old company hasn’t reported a profitable year.

In its Q1 2024 earnings report shared on April 23, Spotify recorded its highest quarterly profit ever, at 1 billion euros (about $1.08 billion). The company noted price increases helping to boost the average revenue it sees per user. However, Spotify’s total monthly active users fell 3 million short of its 618 million user goal. The report also followed about 1,500 layoffs in December 2023.

During Spotify’s Q1 2024 earnings call, Spotify CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek called 2024 Spotify’s “year of monetization” and said the company would focus on “strong revenue growth and margin expansion” via “ambitious plans.” Ek didn’t announce price changes at the time but noted that Spotify often reviews its “value-to-price” ratio in relation to subscription prices, as Variety reported at the time.

Spotify stock opened 5.5 percent higher on news of subscription prices rising, The Wall Street Journal reported today. However, subscribers, who are generally getting increasingly fed up with ever-rising subscription prices, will likely be less impressed by the news.

The announcement of price changes follows Spotify’s recent decision this December to brick its Car Thing hardware after releasing it to the general public in February 2022. Spotify has given some users refunds if they can provide proof of purchase. However, some users online have reported problems with getting refunds due to things like the devices being linked to a third-party or unknown account, people owning multiple devices, or people reportedly being offered Spotify Premium credits initially instead. Spotify has previously declined to specify to Ars Technica the exact criteria required for receiving a full refund on Car Thing.

As Spotify tries to push toward profitability by raising prices and adding new endeavors and by distancing itself from old ones, it walks a tightrope in maintaining the type of customer satisfaction and trust that’ll keep people subscribing.

Spotify raising prices by up to $3 as frustrated subs beg it to “just do music” Read More »

“unacceptable”:-spotify-bricking-car-thing-devices-in-dec.-without-refunds

“Unacceptable”: Spotify bricking Car Thing devices in Dec. without refunds

Spotify, Tech / /

Car Thing becoming nothing —

Spotify stopped making Car Things in July 2022 but kept selling them.

–

“Unacceptable”: Spotify bricking Car Thing devices in Dec. without refunds

Owners of Spotify’s soon-to-be-bricked Car Thing device are begging the company to open-source the gadgets to save some the landfill. Spotify hasn’t responded to pleas to salvage the hardware, which was originally intended to connect to car dashboards and auxiliary outlets to enable drivers to listen to and navigate Spotify.

Spotify announced today that it’s bricking all purchased Car Things on December 9 and not offering refunds or trade-in options. On a support page, Spotify says:

We’re discontinuing Car Thing as part of our ongoing efforts to streamline our product offerings. We understand it may be disappointing, but this decision allows us to focus on developing new features and enhancements that will ultimately provide a better experience to all Spotify users.

Spotify has no further guidance for device owners beyond asking them to reset the device to factory settings and “safely” get rid of the bricked gadget by “following local electronic waste guidelines.”

The company also said that it doesn’t plan to release a follow-up to the Car Thing.

Early demise

Car Thing came out to limited subscribers in October 2021 before releasing to the general public in February 2022.

In its Q2 2022 earnings report released in July, Spotify revealed that it stopped making Car Things. In a chat with TechCrunch, it cited “several factors, including product demand and supply chain issues.” A Spotify rep also told the publication that the devices would continue to “perform as intended,” but that was apparently a temporary situation.

Halted production was a warning sign that Car Thing was in peril. However, at that time, Spotify also cut the device’s price from $90 to $50, which could have encouraged people to buy a device that would be useless a few years later.

Car Thing’s usefulness was always dubious, though. The device has a 4-inch touchscreen and knob for easy navigation, as well as support for Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and voice control. But it also required users to subscribe to Spotify Premium, which starts at $11 per month. Worse, Car Thing requires a phone using data or Wi-Fi connected via Bluetooth in order to work, making the Thing seem redundant.

In its Q1 2022 report, Spotify said that quitting Car Thing hurt gross margins and that it took a 31 million euro (about $31.4 million at the time) hit on the venture.

Open source pleas

Spotify’s announcement has sent some Car Thing owners to online forums to share their disappointment with Spotify and beg the company to open-source the device instead of dooming it for recycling centers at best. As of this writing, there are over 50 posts on the Spotify Community forums showing concern about the discontinuation, with many demanding a refund and/or calling for open-sourcing. There are similar discussions happening elsewhere online, like on Reddit, where users have used phrases like “entirely unnacceptable” to describe the news.

A Spotify Community member going by AaronMickDee, for example, said:

I’d rather not just dispose of the device. I think there is a community that would love the idea of having a device we can customize and use for other uses other than a song playback device.

Would Spotify be willing to maybe unlock the system and allow users to write/flash 3rd party firmware to the device?

A Spotify spokesperson declined to answer Ars’ questions about why Car Thing isn’t being open-sourced and concerns around e-waste and wasted money.

Instead, a company rep told Ars, in part: “The goal of our Car Thing exploration in the US was to learn more about how people listen in the car. In July 2022, we announced we’d stop further production and now it’s time to say goodbye to the devices entirely.” I followed up with Spotify’s rep to ask again about making the device open source but didn’t hear back.

At this point, encouraging customers to waste nearly $100 on a soon-obsolete device hasn’t resulted in any groundbreaking innovations or lessons around “how people listen in the car.” In their initial response, Spotify’s rep pointed me to a Spotify site that searches Spotify’s newsroom for “how to listen to Spotify in the car.” One of the top posts is from 2019 and states that “if your car has an AUX or USB socket, using a cable is probably one of the fastest ways to connect by using your phone.”

As for Spotify, using customer dollars for company-serving learning experiences isn’t the best business plan. And for regular users, it’s best to avoid investing in an unproven hardware venture from a software company.

As Redditor Wemie1420 put it:

Doesn’t feel great that there is literally no alternative other than trashing it. Feels like we’re being punished for supporting them. Dissuades me from buying anything Spotify puts out in the future. I feel like there would be some way to approach this without being like, ‘yeah we’re done. Just throw it out it’s a waste of money now.’

“Unacceptable”: Spotify bricking Car Thing devices in Dec. without refunds Read More »

spotify’s-second-price-hike-in-9-months-will-target-audiobook-listeners

Spotify’s second price hike in 9 months will target audiobook listeners

Spotify, streaming, Tech / /

Searching for profits —

Bloomberg report claims price hike coming to Australia, Pakistan, and the UK first.

–

Spotify logo on phone screen with headphones around the phone

Spotify Premium subscriptions include up to 15 hours of audiobook listening. But starting in April, the company will charge an extra $1 to $2 per month for the feature, Bloomberg reported today, citing anonymous “people familiar with the matter.” The reported price hike would be the second that Spotify customers have faced in nine months.

Currently, Spotify charges nothing for its free plan with ads, $5.99/month for students, $10.99/month for its Premium plan, $14.99/month for its Duo Premium plan for two users, and $16.99/month for its Family Premium plan with up to six users.

Bloomberg reported that individual plan prices will go up by approximately $1 per month and multi-member plans will increase by $2 per month.

The changes will reportedly start in Australia, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, and two other markets by the end of this month. Subscribers in the US will reportedly see prices rise “later this year.”

Spotify will usher the changes by offering a ‘new’ basic tier that lets users access everything on Spotify except audiobooks for $10.99/month, per Bloomberg. That would mean that people who only use Spotify for listening to music and/or podcasts would avoid paying a higher monthly rate. Basic plan members will still be able to buy audiobooks through Spotify, Bloomberg said.

Bloomberg didn’t specify whether Spotify would default current subscribers to this plan so that their monthly costs wouldn’t change or if users would have to take steps to sign up for what would be marketed as a new plan. It also didn’t mention if the basic plan would have additional drawbacks.

The upcoming price increase would be Spotify’s second since it introduced Premium pricing in 2011. In July, Spotify bumped the starting Premium price from $9.99/month to $10.99/month. Spotify’s announcement followed price hikes from rivals like Amazon Music and Tidal.

Spotify tries to be profitable

Spotify may deem these changes necessary to buoy audiobook revenue. The company is heavily invested in the sector and spent $123 million to acquire Findaway in July 2022. Spotify said it was the second biggest audiobook brand after Audible, citing Bookstat data published in The New York Times. But as it stands, Spotify only generates revenue from audiobooks if users go beyond the 15 hours per month limit included in their Premium plan, per Bloomberg.

Spotify, which launched in 2008, hasn’t had a profitable year (although it has reported profitable quarters at times). Audiobooks represent an opportunity for the company to diversify revenue streams beyond its traditional routes, which include paying hefty royalty fees. Spotify says it paid $9 billion in music-related royalties last year, or about 69.7 percent of its 2023 revenue ($13.2 billion). Bloomberg said Spotify’s music industry partners “have been pushing Spotify and its competitors to raise prices” amid concerns about royalty prices.

Spotify has also invested over $1 billion in a podcast business that is currently unprofitable (although Bloomberg noted that Spotify expects this to change in 2024). In December, Spotify announced it was laying off 17 percent of employees.

Audiobooks could help Spotify’s wallets. But charging extra for a service it’s been pushing since October risks losing some of the listeners it’s earned. At the same time, if Spotify ensures that long-time users who simply want Spotify for its original bread-and-butter aren’t impacted, it could help minimize disruption.

As with any price hike, though, Spotify’s changing pricing structure will force users to reassess whether they want to keep paying for Spotify or consider alternatives. Those who’ve been waiting for Spotify to offer high-fidelity audio since 2021, for example, may decide the app doesn’t fit their needs.

A Spotify spokesperson declined to comment on Bloomberg’s report to Ars Technica.

Spotify’s second price hike in 9 months will target audiobook listeners Read More »

report:-apple-is-about-to-be-fined-e500-million-by-the-eu-over-music-streaming

Report: Apple is about to be fined €500 million by the EU over music streaming

antitrust, Apple, Apple Music, EU, Policy, Spotify, streaming, syndication / /

Competition concerns —

EC accuses Apple of abusing its market position after complaint by Spotify.

–

Report: Apple is about to be fined €500 million by the EU over music streaming

Brussels is to impose its first-ever fine on tech giant Apple for allegedly breaking EU law over access to its music streaming services, according to five people with direct knowledge of the long-running investigation.

The fine, which is in the region of €500 million and is expected to be announced early next month, is the culmination of a European Commission antitrust probe into whether Apple has used its own platform to favor its services over those of competitors.

The probe is investigating whether Apple blocked apps from informing iPhone users of cheaper alternatives to access music subscriptions outside the App Store. It was launched after music-streaming app Spotify made a formal complaint to regulators in 2019.

The Commission will say Apple’s actions are illegal and go against the bloc’s rules that enforce competition in the single market, the people familiar with the case told the Financial Times. It will ban Apple’s practice of blocking music services from letting users outside its App Store switch to cheaper alternatives.

Brussels will accuse Apple of abusing its powerful position and imposing anti-competitive trading practices on rivals, the people said, adding that the EU would say the tech giant’s terms were “unfair trading conditions.”

It is one of the most significant financial penalties levied by the EU on Big Tech companies. A series of fines against Google levied over several years and amounting to about 8 billion euros are being contested in court.

Apple has never previously been fined for antitrust infringements by Brussels, but the company was hit in 2020 with a 1.1 billion-euro fine in France for alleged anti-competitive behavior. The penalty was revised down to 372 million euros after an appeal.

The EU’s action against Apple will reignite the war between Brussels and Big Tech at a time when companies are being forced to show how they are complying with landmark new rules aimed at opening competition and allowing small tech rivals to thrive.

Companies that are defined as gatekeepers, including Apple, Amazon, and Google, need to fully comply with these rules under the Digital Markets Act by early next month.

The act requires these tech giants to comply with more stringent rules and will force them to allow rivals to share information about their services.

There are concerns that the rules are not enabling competition as fast as some had hoped, although Brussels has insisted that changes require time.

Brussels formally charged Apple in the anti-competitive probe in 2021. The commission narrowed the scope of the investigation last year and abandoned a charge of pushing developers to use its own in-app payment system.

Apple last month announced changes to its iOS mobile software, App Store, and Safari browser in efforts to appease Brussels after long resisting such steps. But Spotify said at the time that Apple’s compliance was a “complete and total farce.”

Apple responded by saying that “the changes we’re sharing for apps in the European Union give developers choice—with new options to distribute iOS apps and process payments.”

In a separate antitrust case, Brussels is consulting with Apple’s rivals over the tech giant’s concessions to appease worries that it is blocking financial groups from its Apple Pay mobile system.

The timing of the Commission’s announcement has not yet been fixed, but it will not change the direction of the antitrust investigation, the people with knowledge of the situation said.

Apple, which can appeal to the EU courts, declined to comment on the forthcoming ruling but pointed to a statement a year ago when it said it was “pleased” the Commission had narrowed the charges and said it would address concerns while promoting competition.

It added: “The App Store has helped Spotify become the top music streaming service across Europe and we hope the European Commission will end its pursuit of a complaint that has no merit.”

The Commission—the executive body of the EU—declined to comment.

© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved. Not to be redistributed, copied, or modified in any way.

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How criminal networks in Sweden use false Spotify streams to launder money

Data and security, Spotify, Startups and technology / /

This morning, one of Sweden’s largest newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet (SvD), published a thorough investigation into how criminal networks have used Spotify to launder money for years. Specifically, they have been paying for false streams of music published by artists with ties to the groups, and then capitalised on the engineered popularity. 

Analysts at the National Operative Unit of the Swedish Police Force have been looking at (or listening to) rappers publishing their music on the streaming giant since autumn 2021. First, as a means of gathering clues and information about crimes from the lyrics. 

Then, as streaming patterns began to crystallise, the analysts began to suspect that criminals were using the service for a different purpose entirely. 

Now, from a series of interviews conducted with people belonging to either these networks or having insight into the work against streaming bots, SvD’s reporters have established that criminals have indeed been using Spotify to launder money since 2019. 

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The first step, one of the interviewees belonging to a criminal network said, was to buy Bitcoin through “cash in hand” trades initiated via a Facebook group. The gangs then used the cryptocurrency to pay for fake streams — that is, plays of music by bots, hijacked accounts, or other inauthentic methods. Apparently, this contact happened through Telegram, earning the sellers the nickname “Telegrambots.” 

Symbiotic relationship between gangs and artists

So how does this scheme actually launder money? With more streams come higher ratings on lists. With higher ratings come more actual streams, and artists connected to the gangs have set up their own record labels to be able to cash in on the engineered popularity. Actual streams mean real payouts from Spotify, et voilà, the cash is back, cleansed of the illegal activity from whence it came. 

In return, many of the rappers gain “legitimacy” from their affiliation with the gangs. Reportedly, one has tens of millions of streams on the platform. 

Some money will inevitably be lost along the way, due to Spotify’s payout structure (free vs premium accounts, which country the listener is in, etc.). There is also a risk of discovery. Spotify has been clamping down on bot streaming, and can stop payments to accounts that are proven to be involved in the illicit activity. 

According to the newspaper’s sources, this means that this way of laundering money is only worth it when dealing with sums over a few million Swedish krona (1mn SEK = approx €84,000). 

Earlier this year, Spotify, the crown jewel of the Swedish startup ecosystem, said that it had paid out $40bn (€37.2bn) to the music industry since the start of operations. 

Update (12: 30 UTC, September 5, 2023):  Spotify shared the following statement with TNW:

“Manipulated streams are an industry-wide challenge and Spotify has been working hard to address this issue. That said, Spotify is not aware of any contact by law enforcement concerning the suggestions in the SVD article, nor have our internal teams found anything or been provided with any data or hard evidence that indicates that the platform is being used at scale in the fashion described. ”

Spotify is not aware of any contact by law enforcement concerning the suggestions in the SVD article

The company adds that only 1% of streams on the service are deemed to be artificial, with systems detecting anomalies before they reach a “significant” threshold. Furthermore, the music streaming giant highlights its work with the Music Against Fraud Alliance, and educational resources provided to artists on the harms of stream manipulation.

How criminal networks in Sweden use false Spotify streams to launder money Read More »

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Spotify CEO’s startup for AI-powered preventive healthcare raises €60M

Artificial Intelligence, Deep tech, Europe, Spotify, Startups and technology / /

Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek’s preventive healthcare startup just received a very strong vote of confidence from venture capitalists. Earlier today, Neko Health announced it had raised €60mn in a round led by Lakestar and backed by Atomico and General Catalyst.

The funds will be put towards expanding the concept outside of the company’s native Sweden, where it currently operates a private body-scan clinic. 

Neko Health, named after the Japanese word for cat, was founded in 2018 by Ek and Hjalmar Nilsonne. After much secrecy, its first clinic opened in February this year in Stockholm. Within two hours, it was fully booked out and 5,000 people were placed on a waiting list. 

“I’ve spent more than 10 years exploring the untapped potential of healthcare innovation,” Ek said in a statement. “We are dedicated to building a healthcare system that focuses on prevention and patient care, aiming to serve not just our generation, but those that follow.”

3D body scans

At the clinic, people go through a 3D full-body scan in a minimalist booth that would not look out of place in an episode of Star Trek, fitted with dozens of sensors and powered by, you guessed it, artificial intelligence. In particular, algorithms can immediately detect potential skin conditions and risk of cardiovascular disease. 

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Patients (are they still called that in preventative care?) also go through laser scans and an ECG, which, altogether, takes between 10 and 20 minutes. They may not be met by Bones himself after the examinations, but their results are looked over and explained by an actual, human, doctor. 

“We have our own nurses, doctors and specialists,” Nilsonne told Bloomberg. “We have dermatologists employed just to review the skin images. There is a doctor on site who can make qualified medical judgments for anything that comes up.”

The price for a Neko Health assessment is €250, and the company has performed over 1,000 scans since launch. Close to 80% of customers have reportedly prepaid for follow-up scans after a year. 

AI does indeed hold great potential for disease prevention and early detection — but only if the results are interpretable. It is unclear how much insight Neko Health physicians have into how the algorithm makes its predictions (as in, which factor contributes to the risk of cardiovascular disease so the patient/client can be better informed about what measures to take).

Purpose and ambition

One of the company’s backers is Skype co-founder and founder of Atomico, Niklas Zennström, who will also be taking a seat on the board. He sees enormous potential in the new venture from the man who essentially changed how we consume music. 

“Neko Health is exactly the type of mission that gets us excited at Atomico. It’s that rare combination of a firm with a purpose and outsized ambition, and founders with a world class track record,” Zennström said. “They’re solving a problem we can all relate to, with the potential to fundamentally transform global healthcare forever.” 

Spotify CEO’s startup for AI-powered preventive healthcare raises €60M Read More »

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Spotify cracks down on AI-generated music streaming fraud

Data and security, Next Featured, Spotify, Startups and technology / /
Spotify cracks down on AI-generated music streaming fraud

Linnea Ahlgren

Story by

Linnea Ahlgren

According to Spotify founder Daniel Ek, the value of a company is “the sum of the problems you solve.”

The problem of bot farms playing the same tracks over and over to manipulate streaming data may not be entirely new. However, as generative AI tools become increasingly mainstream, it is taking on a new dimension for the music industry. 

This will require streaming service providers to vigilantly predict and plan ahead not to be left playing a game of reactive whac-a-mole, desperately beating down issues as they arise. Otherwise, apart from dealing with obvious copyright controversies, they may end up paying large sums of money for millions of bot-boosted “fake streams.” 

According to a report in the Financial Times, Universal Music Group (UMG), which controls about a third of the global music market, has been sending takedown requests “left and right.” Stockholm-headquartered Spotify has obliged – at least to some degree. 

Last week, the music streaming giant temporarily ousted hundreds of thousands of songs generated on the AI platform Boomy. The California-based startup’s tool lets users create tracks by picking from a selection of styles, such as Lo-Fi or EDM, and then customise them and either record or add vocals, before uploading them to streaming services. 

However, this is not a case of making Drake rap on your track – the vocals must belong to the user. As such, the tracks were not greyed out because of copyright infringement concerns, but due to the discovery of widespread “suspicious listening activity.” 

Meanwhile, this does not mean that Spotify has completely blocked Boomy users and forbidden them from uploading new tracks. Indeed, the AI platform announced this weekend that “Boomy artists” had their curated delivery to the streaming giant re-enabled.

We are pleased to share that curated delivery to Spotify of new releases by Boomy artists has been re-enabled.

Supporting our artists and creators who use the Boomy platform is our top priority, and we greatly appreciate your patience these past few days.

— Boomy – Create AI Music (@boomy) May 6, 2023

Reportedly, the two sides are still in negotiations over the reinstatement of the rest of Boomy’s catalogue. 

Fake stream farms an industry-wide issue

Spotify’s crackdown is part of an ongoing battle against bot streaming farms. Essentially, this is when a bunch of digital devices are logged in on various platforms, and simply play music 24 hours a day, often playing the same track over and over again. 

Obviously, this impacts the number of listens, directly generating revenue for the owner of the track. Meanwhile, it also affects data driven features such as charts and playlists. 

According to the streaming giant, “Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service.”

Earlier this year, France’s Centre National de la Musique (CNM) released a study on music streaming fraud, in which Spotify participated. However, CNM called out other major streaming platforms Apple, Amazon, and YouTube as “unable or unwilling” to take part in the study.

The first-of-its-kind study established that, in France, in 2021, between one and three billion streams, at least, were false, i.e. between 1% and 3% of total listening. Of course, plenty has happened since.

The CNM says it will launch a new study into the matter in 2024, which may better reveal the implications of the recent revolution in access to generative AI  – and the ability of Spotify to mitigate it.

Grimes stands alone in the pro-AI camp

Over the past few months, the music streaming market has experienced a significant rise in AI-generated tracks. According to Boomy, its users have already “created” more than 14 million songs. 

Services such as those provided by Boomy, Aiva, and Soundful leverage machine learning to allow users to generate unlimited tracks and even monetise their creations on streaming platforms, to the chagrin of artists, producers, distributors, and other industry stakeholders. 

Grimes has launched an AI platform specifically for people to use her voice to make new music, stating that “Copyright sucks. Art is a conversation with everyone that has come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept. The music industry has been defined by lawyers, and that strangles creativity.”

Needless to say, she is quite the exception in her pro-generative AI stance in the global artist community. 

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How to Create a Collaborative Spotify Playlist With Your Family This Holiday Season

Christmas, Entertainment, Highlights, Playlist, Spotify / /

internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 905 throw err; ^ Error: Cannot find module ‘puppeteer’ Require stack: – /home/760439.cloudwaysapps.com/jxzdkzvxkw/public_html/wp-content/plugins/rss-feed-post-generator-echo/res/puppeteer/puppeteer.js at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 902: 15) at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 746: 27) at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 974: 19) at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js: 101: 18) at Object. (/home/760439.cloudwaysapps.com/jxzdkzvxkw/public_html/wp-content/plugins/rss-feed-post-generator-echo/res/puppeteer/puppeteer.js:2: 19) at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 1085: 14) at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 1114: 10) at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 950: 32) at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 790: 12) at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js: 75: 12) code: ‘MODULE_NOT_FOUND’, requireStack: [ ‘/home/760439.cloudwaysapps.com/jxzdkzvxkw/public_html/wp-content/plugins/rss-feed-post-generator-echo/res/puppeteer/puppeteer.js’ ]

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How to Get Three Months of Spotify Premium for Free

Entertainment, Freebies, Highlights, Media Streaming, Spotify, Streaming Music / /

internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 905 throw err; ^ Error: Cannot find module ‘puppeteer’ Require stack: – /home/760439.cloudwaysapps.com/jxzdkzvxkw/public_html/wp-content/plugins/rss-feed-post-generator-echo/res/puppeteer/puppeteer.js at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 902: 15) at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 746: 27) at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 974: 19) at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js: 101: 18) at Object. (/home/760439.cloudwaysapps.com/jxzdkzvxkw/public_html/wp-content/plugins/rss-feed-post-generator-echo/res/puppeteer/puppeteer.js:2: 19) at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 1085: 14) at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 1114: 10) at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 950: 32) at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js: 790: 12) at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (internal/modules/run_main.js: 75: 12) code: ‘MODULE_NOT_FOUND’, requireStack: [ ‘/home/760439.cloudwaysapps.com/jxzdkzvxkw/public_html/wp-content/plugins/rss-feed-post-generator-echo/res/puppeteer/puppeteer.js’ ]

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