This is a great read with insights into how a fully digitally transformed ecosystem like the music industry is becoming the target for creative spamming and exploitation that just wasn’t thinkable in the analog times or in the early digital times when haptic media like CDs were still used. Apparently it is not so easy these days not to be tricked and fooled by spammers who play the system in order to generate significant passive income streams. Exciting read!
“A few weeks after the release of Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble,” the hard-charging lead single on his fourth album Damn., the song landed at No. 1 on Billboard’s streaming chart. It’s been on the chart ever since, never falling below No. 3 as users have played it more than 291 million times on Spotify alone.
And that’s just the streaming total for Lamar’s version. His hit song has also been a boon for Spotify’s parasitic underbelly — the coverbots and ripoff artists who vomit out inferior versions of popular songs every week, flooding the website with dreck that only succeeds when users are misled. No one would willingly listen to King Stitch’s “Sit Down, Be Humble,” a third-rate cover of Lamar’s original, but the track has been streamed more than 300,000 times thanks to Spotify’s broad search results and a clever title designed to confuse those who don’t know the song’s real name…”
Read more here: How Spammers, Superstars, and Tech Giants Gamed Music
ANDRÉ CRAMER 