r/technology • u/tekz • 18h ago

Business Why are so many musicians removing their music from Spotify?

https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-culture/musicians-removing-music-spotify-royalties-ai-daniel-ek-10208768/
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u/E-M-P-Error 16h ago

Complains about Spotify using AI songs/bands/artists.

Uses AI generated pictures in his blogpost.

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u/SoldantTheCynic 13h ago edited 13h ago

Had a good laugh at that too, but it's just how people are with "AI". People want AI to do the stuff they can't do and don't want to pay someone for, and stay away from the stuff that they care about. The irony in complaining about AI bands cheapening content whilst using AI generated images in a blog post isn't something they'd stop to think about.

EDIT - the half-arsed 'justification' in the footnotes for using AI images just reinforces that they don't value digital artists. "We have no art budget" really means "I'm not paying someone to make this so I'm going to use AI instead." Fucking hypocrite.

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u/leftofdanzig 11h ago

the half-arsed 'justification' in the footnotes for using AI images just reinforces that they don't value digital artists. "We have no art budget" really means "I'm not paying someone to make this so I'm going to use AI instead." Fucking hypocrite.

Yea, the footnote makes it worse. You’re literally preaching about AI taking jobs but then are taking something that could have been someone’s job.

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u/[deleted] 7h ago

[deleted]

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u/SoldantTheCynic 5h ago

Which is fine (and I’m not even that against AI generated images) but they can’t do that and complain about AI generated music. For them to add a footnote and try and justify it is even worse lol.

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u/CWagner 4h ago

I mean, that is what I said. But apparently this sub isn’t big on reading.

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u/SuperBackup9000 6h ago

I mean, there’s no reason why it couldn’t have been a paid job. If you’ve got 28 people maintaining and writing on a site, presumably because it’s a passion project for all of them and they love doing it, surely some of them could chip in some money to improve the site.

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u/DurgeDidNothingWrong 11h ago

If he has no budget, he just shouldn't use images at all. Agree with you

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u/sudosussudio 11h ago

Yeah they aren’t even essential to the post

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u/StorminNorman 4h ago

Or use it as an opportunity to steal images generated by others and prove your point more. I dunno, it's dumb as fuck what they've done and I don't get it. I'd personally use a subheading, this is just me trying to somehow try and fugure out how I could maybe do it and not feel gross...

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u/Significant-Secret88 16h ago

Whereas I appreciated the article, choosing those crappy images was quite distasteful

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u/Infinite_Scribe 13h ago

Immediately clocked that. What a weird choice when railing against a predatory system, you use a tool that also devalues art.

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u/KontoOficjalneMR 4h ago

Ah. Reminds me of Zbigniew Hołdys - Polish artist that included an entire track on an album where he monologued how pirates are making his children starve.

Album he mastered using the pirated software.

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u/hypnoticlife 9h ago

Spotify has millions in revenue and pays their artists peanuts. Blog guy gets some ad revenue maybe? He’s allowed to have a stance against AI by companies that can afford to pay for real human content.

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u/SuperBackup9000 6h ago

Spotify sucks, but mate, you have to learn what revenue is.

Revenue is the money you make before expenses are paid, it is not the same as profit which is the money that’s leftover after expenses are paid. The millions they make go right back into paying for the company to operate, which has historically never been profitable outside of last year, and they’re already back to being not profitable this year.

Spotify also can’t afford to pay for real human content. This is one of the rare cases where the little indie guys are in the same boat as the massive corporation.