How A Silent Album Robbed Spotify Of $20,000
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- čas přidán 29. 09. 2023
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Track 2 on the Ciccone Youth album is NOT actually silence, or not pure silence anyway.
Approximately 25 years ago, when CD burners were cutting edge tech, I was a computer nerd and bought one. Being able to make mix CDs instead of mix tapes made me super cool at the time 😎
But anyway I decided one of my mixes needed a palette cleansing section of silence and the simpliest way i could think of to do this was to just rip the silent track from that Ciccone Youth CD. However, a standard feature of cd ripping/burning software was volume normalization which makes sure the different volumes of music from different CDs would be adjusted to levels that were equal. When the software normalized the volume of the silent track it revealed that there was a muffled recording of people talking that could be heard if the gain was increased about 100 times.
The recording was muffled to the point you couldn't make out the conversation apart from a word here or there, but one of the people talking sounded like it was likely Kim. I posted about it on a forum for SY but it was news to everyone there and there was no further information.
that’s so sicc
Hey Kool Thing, have you ever heard of Apophenia? It's when the human brain detects patterns where there are none. While dubious, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt integrity-wise but science doesn't support the idea that you can hear muffled talking on Silence if you simply turn up the gain to infinity. In fact, I think that they did this on X-Files once, when they amplified the holy grail so much that they were able to pick up the residual vibrations of Jesus talking or something equally plausible. In reality, what you're describing - creating signal out of mechanical friction - is sort of the CSI "Enhance" of sound engineering. Fun story, tho!
The version on bandcamp is amplified, and yeah you can definitely hear talking at points (sounds reversed, maybe?), but it's below the noise floor so it's impossible to make out.
Probably no further news because you may very well have been the first person that found out about it. They might have "recorded" the studio silence but professional high quality mics can pick up A SHITLOAD, so it may have been the people in the background talking in a different room that made just enough noise that the mic picked it up at a super low level (maybe even the lowest of sounds it can pick up). The band itself may not even have known about it until you shed some light on it about what you heard.
@@T3n50r I’d buy that if the OP was working with the original master tapes, but it’s a remarkable stretch to imagine sound that needs 100x logarithmic amplification surviving a mastering process.
Steal is a very strong word. They just worked out how to cheese the system.
The problem is that because of the scummy setup Spotify made, they were inadvertently "stealing" from other artists. IIRC Spotify divvies up their revenue based on share of listens. In other words, if these guys cheesed $20,000, that money isn't coming out of Spotify's pockets, it's being redirected from other artist's income.
It'd be like a workplace having some budget set to all employees, with pay being distributed on contributions, then someone finding a way of artificially boosting their contribution. Employer is fucked for setting the system up, the employee is a dick for screwing with everyone else's honest efforts to make money.
Real fucked up system and a pretty unethical way of abusing it IMO.
I believe "Sleepify" was recorded in "analog silence" (somewhere around -60dB and higher) while Spotify was programmed to only detect "digital silence" which is at -100dB
$20,000 isn't even that much when you think about the fact that its a band of four guys and they do this fulltime as a living. Like yeah, $5,000 a person is a nice amount to get, but considering this was such a highly publicized moment -- the thing that literally put this band in the public eye -- it really isn't a remarkable amount.
right? 20k isn't anything for a multimillion dollar company
@@jonstechchannel Except it's not coming out of Spotify's pocket. Because of how they structure their payment model, it's coming out of the pockets of other artists.
Spotify is the bad guy in every situation where music is involved.
A good amount of artists are discovered each day by new fans through Spotify. On a whole, they help spread the noise.
@@leon_pp that is nothing exclusive to spotify or anything theyve chosen to do besides existing
@@itsbrd2494 a platform doing the bare minimum in a vacuum means nothing if they actively do horrible shit
The industry is always the bad guy, which merely proves musicians are also just people. People cooperating often leads to conflict. The bands, who are visible in public, display everything from their own, disturbed perspective. The fans hear that and come to the conclusion, that the label is evil.
@@itsbrd2494they're saying Spotify did the bare minimum (you can't really exist without an "algorithm" anymore), and nothing more
The main issue with Spotify's payment wasn't covered in this video. Rather than giving artists $X per play, they pay 70% of Spotify's earnings, divided among the songs, weighted by what was played more. This has caused issues because of people that make AI music or barely music, then have someone with a room full of phones play it over and over to take money from the real artists. If the pay per stream was a set value, rather than a % of a %, artists would make more. All that I mentioned was leaving out the record labels too, who always get their grubby hands on the cash first.
Another fun part of this story is that Vulf was planning on doing a second album like sleepify but they planned on giving people $1 for coming to their shows instead of making it free. Unfortunately Spotify put an end to that quickly and it never panned out.
I like how you used the album as background music for the video
Spotify asks for album to be removed.
Band: “why”
Spotify: *silence*
I remember finding out about the 30 second limit and felt so bad for grind bands with thousands of songs under 30 seconds. But I stopped using spotify when they banned thousands of albums I love dearly for lyrics and historical themes they dislike. They still have the album information, and many are there but just unable to play. total BS. ALL streaming services did this so for most of my music I went back to what I did for years.. Have a giant local FLAC and physical vinyl collection. Fuck centralized streaming like that. Even stuff like discogs is on board with banning the sales of those albums. forcing the bands to do it secretly so google cant ban their links.
Also labels do this paying for plays thing for decades and still do to this day, the thing is labels are allowed to.. some artists can too.. just not what spotify or the current zeitgeist doesn't want popular
started watching u yrs ago man. its dope how good u hve gotten at making vids. i fr have watched every single vid p sure. i'm not as n2 hip hop as i was yrs ago so its great ur branching out more recently. great content as always
Thank you ♥️
Yeah, I remember this…I actually streamed that album😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Yassine, these videos are top tier. I remember watching a video from you every now and then, when you used to upload about recent topics. These new documentary style videos are even better I've been watching ever since you first started releasing these.
Thanks a lot man!
Pro-tip for people trying to prop their favourite artists: just play your streaming playlist through some headphones, and if you wish to preserve the speaker cones, use analog ones with a volume regulator… Spotify's app can't detect muted volume at the analog level ;)
Vulfpeck is actually just my favorite band because of their music, but it's cool to see them get more recognition!
How Spotify robbed musicians of billions of dollars
i wouldnt know of 98% of musician i listen to without spotify. that means 0 money to all of them
*How Napster robbed musicians of billions of dollars.
I fixed that for you.
@@RealHomeRecording It's well documented that people that were never going to pay for music anyway meant Napster made very little difference.
Have you watched the documentary on Spotify? Their entire model was to take people from PirateBay and charge them. Nobody thought it would work.
People are willing to pay. The only problem is, Spotify now takes the majority of that income for themselves.
Its convenient paying £10 a month and getting unlimited music. But now, because its such a prominent platform, artists are forced to use it for exposure or to make any money from streams at all.
I'm a musician, I spend my day promoting myself on social media, teaching, writing, mixing, mastering, networking and getting songs released to streaming platforms.
The amount of listeners I have does not equate to a sustainable career! It would have in the 90s when those people woulad have bought the CD to listen, but now, it's not a viable career for anyone that isn't at the top of the charts. I'm forced to gig and tour to make ends meet.
People (supposedly) love music.. its an artform. It takes effort and a lifetime of practice and dedication - and we are paid peanuts.
Many EDM artists have to tour and DJ to make their money because nobody is buying Vinyl singles anymore. A few people streaming a single means nothing to the artist.
Musicans below mid-tier are getting historically paid less than they ever have done.
Listen to the charts - its awful, unlistainable garbage. People with talent may just stop bothering and that will be music's greatest loss
Spotify still hasn't turned a profit, ever
Unfortunately, art and big commerce will never get along. I say stay independent. With the internet at your fingertips, you can find 1000+ fans as long as youre persistent and make a living, hopefully more.
Love your videos bro, your hustle keeps me motivated 💪🏾
Good video, was surprised when I saw "beneath the toxic jungle" at 1:21
Best way to support is buy the album and going to the shows and buyng merch, but still stream the music. The CD is over there, but the Spotify playlist is what gets played.
Saw them live. They put on a great show!
They are smart and got rewarded for it, good content bro keep it up!!
This is the most 1000 IQ play a musician/band can do.
what I find funny is MCR did this on their black parade album There is a hidden track called Blood that doesn't start until 1 min 35 I have the CD and always thought the last track was bugged or something. wasn't till i ripped to my pc and realised it was an actual song.
That was done for an entirely different reason, so not really the same thing. Bonus tracks often used to be hidden after some silence after the last song, or by rewinding backwards from the first song, because it wasn't immediately obvious on CDs the same way it is in the digital format where you can see the song length. Plenty of bands have done this.
Wow, that's the album that got CORY WONG his own signature Stratocaster model? 😮😮😮
I truly like your videos, truly informative!!! keep it up
Maybe I’ll get this lucky one day, I’ve been trying to master the art of silence for some time now…
I’m here early asf 😭 Great vid tho the content being get better and better
Thank you!
Very dope info bro. I've been subscribed for a while. Keep it going my guy 💪🏼if you ever wanna check out my music lmk.
Ohhh man. Knower- overtime live sesh video on youtube. clowncore's lewis cole (ungodly drummer) and 2nd member Sam and vulfpeck members and others (Genevieve, the singer). So freakin sick. God bless them too for musicians fucking spotify over for once. Bend over and take it, spotify. Hows it feel?
The royalty system should make the split at each subscriber level. So if ots 10$ a month subscription 3 goes to spotify and then 7 is split evenly between all the streams that account did that month. Omly thing is it could be computationally expensive
In a perfect world, music is free to consume, while the artists also still get paid. Music is the language of the human soul, everyone should be able to listen, and those who can speak should be able to live a good life
You have no idea how money works and think we can just generate money without inflation happening. This is an absolutely dystopian world where your bread will soon cost $20.
@@snelle_tomoshe said in a PERFECT WORLD. Nice reading and comprehension there, bud. 🙄
@@isthatujeebus Your perfect world completely avoids the logic of money. It is not a perfect world, it's a dystopia, like I said earlier.
@@snelle_tomos are you really this hard of understanding?
@@isthatujeebus Only one person with lack of understanding here and it's not me bro
shout out to vulfpeck been listening to them/not listening to them(sleepify) since 2013. I even played one of their songs for my highschool music final
I remember when this went down. Thing that bugs me: they were able to make $20,000 from Spotify off of that one album. Meanwhile, other relatively popular musicians complain about only making like $50 a year off of Spotify. Where is the discrepancy here? Silent scam album or not, why was Vulfpeck actually able to be paid out a significant amount of money in a short time? Is it that for other artists, the label takes all the money?
Yes, it is. Spotify actually loses money constantly because of how much the labels take. They pay out 70% of the revenue, labels take most of that and musicians get maybe 5-7% of the revenue.
Um then how is the CEO a billionaire
Man i been using spotify for a while i really wish things would be better but if spotify doesnt figure out how to be good for the artists ima have to go somewhere else
Where?
Don’t sleep on Pooty Tang. In 2001, Pooty was making music that was so cool, if you were unhip your ears wouldn’t even register the dulcet tones. Man, that song still smokes to this day. And it smokes to this day, too.
ann arbor made a lot of things
-photoshop
-domino's pizza
-biggest stadium in the country
-the cubicle was invented here
-first frat house
-terry crews, madonna, tom brady, michael phelps, sahsa obama, gerald ford went to university here
The city was marked as the best city to live in the entire country in 2023
i don't think it's because they were short on cash, i think it's because they wanted to do a free tour for fans
Bingo
love your videos Yassine!!
Rav at 1:21 in the video just brightens my day!
Oh I’m absolutely trying something similar to this. Some small noises but overall some silence
Can't forget about Bloodhound Gang's 'The Ten Coolest Things About New Jersey'
How in the hell do they know what the volume is? That's outrageous and there's certainly ways around it.
Is this guy an AI voice dub? Why are some of his pauses awkwardly spaced it seems too heavily editted
You really do not miss Yassine. 🎉
Noti gang in da house 🔥💪🏽
1:22 Rav!
Having someone purchase your music is cute in the short term but if your music is a classic,seasonal, or thought of when certain of event happen streaming is clutch. Mariah Carey could have sold millions of her Christmas album but guess what if there wasn’t steaming she wouldn’t be up every Christmas with album purchases you don’t get a chance to sale it the sane customer ever day. I’m sure during graduation time Vitamin C gets hella coin too. During wedding season Next, Bruno Mars, Seal,Paramore,
Etta James ect ect & Halloween I know the ghost busters song is going hard on the paint lol
Can you do a video on Sosa Entertainment and Jake Noch?
You sound like the voice of the new ai dj feature in Spotify lol
Tide is mad underrated, they got great interviews
How nice of them to cover Pooty Tang
Ahh Yeah. Ahhh. Damn, this is good. This is good. Man, Pootie done did it again. Pootie too good. Pootie too good. Pootie too good.
Taco Bell employees are also valuable. I say that as a musician. Saying that in America, we’ve lost the barometer for placing actual value on goods and services, art and entertainment. Entertainment is the most lucrative business. But only a specific type of entertainment. Example: how much do actors in broadway make as compared to the “silver screen”.
Ironically Jay-Z kinda shot himself in the foot there. His entire discography is back on Spotify. I remember I was on a family vacation to Taiwan when I randomly searched Watch The Throne on Spotify and there it was. I then found out about the announcement of his music returning to Spotify to 'celebrate his 48th birthday or something'
Hot streak!!!!
That’s no more than a rounding error to Spotify. They’ll be fine.
20k is just a speck of dust for spotify
The problem is that because Spotify did the dick move of making artists compete for money with one-another for a share of a pie allotted for payouts, that $20k came out the revenue streams of other artists.
Ain’t Ann Arbor Michigan where tally hall was made
Spotify: "An artist is profiting on the platform we created to convince people we want to help artists profit? Not on our fucking watch..."
I knew this was gonna be about Vulfpeck before I clicked play lol
You could just play your favourite artists album on mute overnight and it'll have the same effect. Delete every album off spotify?
Did you watch the video? Spotify knows if it’s muted.
@@helloyassine you could still have your phone volume turned up but your Bluetooth speaker turned all the way down
6:51 I recognize that language.
I fking love this band!!
that john cage joke was worth it
2:10 *WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE*
vulfpeck is one of my fav bands of all time
That one guy's WholeFoods comparison made no sense
Streaming services ultimately disconnect that personal nature of music that the world once had. That connection you felt with a band after buying an album, popping it in, and listening to it front to back to see if you liked any of the songs. Music was an experience that you had been given from that artist. Music has, aside from a minority of people who still purchase music, lost that experience. Now it’s just shuffling through songs you like from random artists to fit a vibe. And while that’s still a great thing to have, albums don’t get appreciated in the way they once were. I encourage anybody who reads this to sit down a listen to an album front to back of an artist they only know two or three songs from. There’s a lot of great experiences to be had in the music most people look past while searching for hit songs.
Honestly, I have never felt _more_ connected with the artists that I enjoy since _after_ streaming services. It's so easy to discover new tracks from the same artist that I've never heard before because I didn't listen to them back when that was released. Let's take Paramore as an example of a band I love, but I hadn't heard their entire discography even 8-10 years into me discovering them but one day Spotify had completed my playlist and continued playing tracks from an album of theirs I hadn't heard before and it literally became my new favorite album of theirs.
I make a pretty good hamburger at home. It doesn't mean I don't buy them occasionally.
Silence was the best track ever 🔥
They didn't steal money from Spotify. They were within spotify's guidelines. The fact Spotify changed the rules after the fact because they didn't cover their bases is Spotify's issue. I. Glad they paid out
The album was most streamed in LA and San Francisco 😂 I’m shocked people in these coastal Lib circuses have so much free time, no really.
This whole story is condensed Reddit.
Another great video
its about fuckin time
are they ok about us sampling it?
I'm thinking of remixing it. Will be HYPE 😅
Interesting. Dope👏🏼
Water free from the tap. I am paying £40 a month for tap water.
Dope man
Vulfpeck is a legendary band. They're most popular among elite-level musicians. You know them if you're at least an intermediate-level musician.
outro on vollmilch is SO GOOD !
Clown
Is this why they raised the price 😩
$20,000 for a huge company like Spotify is a drop in the bucket
Problem is that the money isn't coming out of their pockets, it's coming out of the pockets of other artists because of how Spotify structures their payouts. They don't pay out per-stream, they pay out based on how much they made, then divide that up between artists (more streams = larger % for that artist).
@@tanmang42 Ahh ok, makes sense why that’s a bigger deal then
$20,000!? They should have robbed Spotify for more
Spotify isn't paying them, it's technically other artists. They divvy up revenue between musicians making them compete against one-another, so this was basically a heist of $20k off of other artists, all thanks to the terrible system Spotify put in place along with these guys not considering it.
Artists need to view streaming as a marketing tool, not a primary means of income. For all but the absolute biggest artists, Spotify payout isn't a real source of income, and fans who want to support an artist still want to get something in exchange for their money, not an MP3 file with DRM. Streaming is valuable when it's viewed as a way for people to discover new artists. People who discover artists through streaming become fans, and fans buy merch, physical albums, and concert tickets.
This couldn't be more wrong. The record labels love streaming, due to how much it generates. You don't see Russ complaining. Connor Price makes like 250k a month off streaming. .mike also six figures a month. Both independent. I get over 1million streams a month completely passively, about 80% algo plays on Spotify now, and Editorial. Spotify pays out 7billion a year in royalties. Trust me. It's about money lol.
@@djanon22 I don't entirely agree with OP either but they did say "For all but the absolute biggest artists". Russ and Connor Price are definitely big enough to count as part of that. Most Spotify artists have
@@lukedavies900 Part of that issue stems from hobbyists egotistically thinking they are professionals, putting music up with DistroKid, and assuming they'll go viral after a few Adam Ivy videos. I have 150+ artist names and can reproduce success over and over. I didn't learn it anywhere. I just do not agree, as it sounds like bitter artist syndrome when the issue is more so a lack of talent. Out of the 11mill;ion artists on Spotify, 80% of them aren't very good. So I'm not sure about that. Most professionals do pretty well.
@@djanon22 I don't see how any of this changes the fact that Spotify is a very small income stream relative to stream numbers. You went off on a bit of a tangent.
@lukedavies900 It really isn't lol. The only people complaining are the ones who don't get streams. The professionals tend to not complain. Make of that what you will. If I went on a tangent you are blissfully naive.
roddy rich held that spot 😂
nirvana have literally 12 minute silence between two last songs on the album and nobody is making a wusss about it
Wish it was 20 million
This should be called "the band that was more popular when they didnt play music"
Water (potable) is not free
To be fair given the rules you run into this follows them very well.
Nice video! Keep it up :-)
Ah way poor Spotify who has a billionaire CEO and pays.0004 cents per stream
katana zero ost 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
I mean people are still coming to Spotify so they shouldn’t care
Wait a minute, so, you’re telling me they allow Songs For The Deaf, but not whatever this is?
Spotify is on the right!
I love the content, but is the voiceover is AI?
🔥🔥🔥
How come Spotify looks bad here? Someone tries to literally rob your company and what are you supposed to do, sit and watch it happen? I'm not saying their business model is good, though.
Good stuff
Oh yeah 😂 They figured out a loophole
Lmao this makes me love them even more.