Hacker News with Generative AI: Spotify

Spotify's Beta Used 'Pirate' MP3 Files, Some from Pirate Bay (2017) (torrentfreak.com)
Spotify is often credited as the music service most in tune with the 'pirate' mentality, having converted millions of former file-sharers in recent years. Interestingly, according to writer and researcher Rasmus Fleischer, a decade ago the site actually populated its beta with pirate MP3s, including some that were only available on The Pirate Bay.

Music Streaming, Piracy, Spotify, History, Music Industry

329 points by __natty__ 37 days ago | 253 comments

Spotify is not as cheap as it seems (newstatesman.com)
On Sunday 7 January 2024 at 8.06am, I listened to the 1998 Eurodance hit “Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom!!” by the Vengaboys.

Music Streaming, Spotify, Cost Analysis

6 points by New_Statesman 44 days ago | 0 comments

Spotify Paid $10B to the Music Industry in 2024, $1B More Than Last Year (variety.com)
Spotify paid out $10 billion to the music industry in 2024 — some $1 billion more than last year, the previous record — making its total around $60 billion since it was founded in 2006. The company made the announcement in a blog post Tuesday morning.

Music Industry, Streaming, Business, Spotify, Finance

37 points by ilamont 57 days ago | 79 comments

Goodbye, Slopify (alexeystar.com)
My Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify is finally poisoned by AI slop.

Music Streaming, Artificial Intelligence, Spotify

346 points by surprisetalk 64 days ago | 280 comments

Spotify Shuts Down ‘Unwrapped’ Artist Royalty Calculator with Legal Threats (digitalmusicnews.com)
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been busy selling stock this year, becoming a multi-billionaire worth around $7.3 billion according to Forbes. Now, the calculator for showcasing how relatively little Spotify pays to artists — and the absurd contrast to top-level Spotify executive compensation — has been shut down due to the threat of legal action.

Music Industry, Spotify, Legal Issues, Business

219 points by cpach 96 days ago | 272 comments

Spotify's Plot Against Musicians (harpers.org)
404 Not Found. We can not find the page you are looking for.

Music Industry, Spotify, Criticism

13 points by gennarro 103 days ago | 8 comments

The Ugly Truth About Spotify Is Finally Revealed (honest-broker.com)
In early 2022, I started noticing something strange in Spotify’s jazz playlists.

Music Streaming, Spotify, Criticism

204 points by LordAtlas 103 days ago | 261 comments

The Ugly Truth About Spotify Is Finally Revealed (honest-broker.com)
In early 2022, I started noticing something strange in Spotify’s jazz playlists.

Music Streaming, Spotify, Music Industry

19 points by frans 104 days ago | 2 comments

The Ghosts in the Machine – Spotify's plot against musicians (harpers.org)
Spotify, I discovered, not only has partnerships with a web of production companies, which, as one former employee put it, provide Spotify with “music we benefited from financially,” but also a team of employees working to seed these tracks on playlists across the platform.

Music Industry, Spotify, Business, Conspiracy Theories

48 points by neom 104 days ago | 4 comments

Ghost artists on Spotify (harpers.org)
Spotify, the rumor had it, was filling its most popular playlists with stock music attributed to pseudonymous musicians—variously called ghost or fake artists—presumably in an effort to reduce its royalty payouts.

Music Industry, Spotify, Fake Artists, Music Streaming, Royalty Payments

586 points by greenie_beans 104 days ago | 383 comments

Rage-inducing, unnecessary EOL from Spotify (reddit.com)
Yesterday, they shut it down. To be clear, they didn’t just stop selling them, they bricked every one that they had ever sold.

Music Streaming, Spotify, Consumer Issues, Controversy

10 points by ValentineC 108 days ago | 2 comments

Spotify's Car Thing Accessory Is Officially Dead (macrumors.com)
Spotify today shut down all Car Thing accessories, several months after announcing plans to discontinue the product. As of this week, Car Thing is no longer functional and will not work with the Spotify streaming service.

Spotify, Car Technology, Discontinued Products, Streaming Services

12 points by usaphp 113 days ago | 7 comments

Pissed off by Spotify Enshittifying more API endpoints? We can help (metabrainz.org)
Today Spotify announced that a number of APIs will no longer be available for new users.

Music Streaming, APIs, Spotify

50 points by mayhemchaos 125 days ago | 8 comments

Spotify cuts developer access to several of its recommendation features (techcrunch.com)
Spotify will no longer allow developers building third-party apps with its Web API to access several features within the music streaming platform, such as song and artist recommendations, the company announced in a developer blog post on Wednesday.

Spotify, Music Streaming, API, Development, Recommendations

7 points by cannibalXxx 126 days ago | 1 comments

Spotify has shut down several API endpoints (spotify.com)
Effective today, new Web API use cases will no longer be able to access or use the following endpoints and functionality in their third-party applications.

Spotify, APIs, Software, Programming, Third-Party Apps

293 points by leecoursey 126 days ago | 290 comments

Not even Spotify is safe from AI slop (theverge.com)
I first noticed something weird when a HEALTH album dropped on my Spotify new release radar. Except the cover design was funny — it didn’t look like a HEALTH album.

Music, AI, Streaming Services, Spotify

10 points by alsetmusic 139 days ago | 2 comments

Requesting Spotify access_token's to use their API in seconds (spoken.host)

API, Spotify, Development, Authentication

12 points by 4788424801146 140 days ago | 1 comments

Spotify Bricked the Car Thing, So I Hacked Mine [video] (youtube.com)

Spotify, Hardware Hacking, Video, Software, Audio

11 points by martin_a 153 days ago | 2 comments

Spotify Will Keep Remote Working (edmtunes.com)
Giant streaming platform Spotify has bucked the trend of tech companies mandating a return to the office, maintaining its flexible remote work policy.

Remote Work, Spotify, Technology

91 points by bilsbie 173 days ago | 25 comments

Spotify family plans 29% price jump (spotify.com)
Listen without limits. Try 1 month of Premium Individual for free.

Music Streaming, Pricing, Spotify

3 points by boringg 180 days ago | 1 comments

Spotify Is Down (theverge.com)

Spotify, Service Outages, Technology

7 points by doppp 185 days ago | 0 comments

Epic Games and Spotify Say Apple's Latest DMA Changes Are 'Illegal' (macrumors.com)

Legal Issues, Apple, Spotify, Epic Games, Antitrust

42 points by KolmogorovComp 237 days ago | 52 comments

I Quit Spotify (newyorker.com)