Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music

Subject: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 09:59 AM

I maintain a large (600+ song) playlist of folk music on Spotify. There's a wide plethora of Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh folk music on there. Suddenly over the last few days, dozens of the tracks have disappeared from Spotify and are showing as greyed out in the playlist. Clicking through to the profile pages of the artists affected, I see that loads of them have had multiple albums removed from Spotify. Martin Simpson's classic "The Bramble Briar" is gone. Most of Martin Carthy's discography is gone. All of Fernhill's albums but one have disappeared. It's quite devastating and seems to have affected mainly folk artists - I don't see the same thing with other kinds of artists. Is it possible that there's some kind of licensing dispute or snafu that's affecting mainly folk/independent artists?

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 10:12 AM

Takedown Fails: Artists Are Seeing Their Music Removed From DSPs for Streaming Fraud They Didn’t Commit

From April 9, 2024

On Feb. 9, the electronic artist Benn Jordan, who performs under the alias the Flashbulb, was attempting to reference one of his songs during a recording session but couldn’t access his music on Spotify or Tidal. He thought at first that his phone was glitching — but then he began receiving messages from fans asking him why he’d removed all of his music from streaming platforms. Not surprisingly, panic set in.

Jordan, who to date has earned more than $500,000 in streaming royalties and relies on them for a significant part of his income, had been unwittingly caught up in streaming services’ new crackdown on fraud. TuneCore, his distributor, had received a notice from Spotify indicating that significant artificial streaming activity had been detected on his music. TuneCore summarily removed all 23 of his albums from all streaming platforms — without warning.

Streaming fraud is one of the most serious problems facing the music industry. Because most streaming platforms operate on a pro-rata payment model — in which payment is based on an artist’s share of total streams — fraudsters have managed to steer millions of dollars away from legitimate artists, songwriters, labels and publishers. And because DIY distributors like TuneCore and Distrokid allow virtually anyone to distribute unlimited audio files to streaming platforms for around $20 per year, at a volume that is extremely difficult to police effectively, the barrier to entry is virtually nonexistent. (Note: the warning about a violation in Spotify policies pictured in the above image is from Distrokid.)

Artists that use DIY distributors like these collectively earned $1.8 billion in 2023, representing just over 5% of the total market share of the global recorded music industry, according to music research firm MIDiA.

Find the rest of the article at the link.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 10:30 AM

Yes I read that article too when researching this - it seems to pop up in a number of places. But I'm not sure that's it - removal of music suspected of streaming fraud seems to have been going on for months, whereas this is a bunch of quite established artists having multiple entire albums removed overnight. It seems to have been something large happening over the last few days. I'm hoping it's something like a bunch of labels have been slow to renew their licensing deals or something, and the music will come back online. I can't imagine Martin Carthy's being accused of streaming fraud.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,IS
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 03:02 PM

One could argue that the ones committing fraud here are not the removed musicians but the streaming sites who offer grossly unfair remuneration - amongst whom Spotify is one of the worst offenders. Perhaps these artists, or their labels, have collectively decided to remove their music from Spotify et al?

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 04:13 PM

When the bean counter$ first took note of Dead Internet theory, was when it cea$ed to be just a 'theory.' The streaming industry, in particular, began with the watchdogs, study groups, task forces... and their own bots & AI... over a year ago when all the bogus traffic was still (just) under 50%.

Nobody wants to pay for all the fake, non-human traffic, but most are willing to look the other way if it's their payday.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: Hesk
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 07:29 PM

Perhaps is time to reevaluate the currently much maligned CD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 14 Apr 24 - 08:50 PM

I understand that any mention of Spotify will always provoke comments about the unfairness of Spotify and artists getting ripped off etc...I actually have CD's of a lot of the music I listen to on Spotify, it's just nice to have everything pooled together in large playlists you can put on random repeat. But this is not some mass protest or statement against Spotify - that would probably entail artists taking down their entire catalog like Joni Mitchell did a few years ago. This is partial pulling of one or two albums from artists' catalogs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: WillH
Date: 15 Apr 24 - 04:40 AM

I noticed this as well last night, many of my playlists were skipping songs, seems to be folk artists that have a low level of streams on spotify , but even the Waterson's album "Early Days" has been removed. Hope it's sorted soon.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 24 - 05:46 AM

Silly sisters second album and most of June Tabor’s discography also seem to have disappeared - hoping it al comes back online soon!

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,IS
Date: 15 Apr 24 - 08:23 AM

It seems like a lot of the releases mentioned are from Topic Records. Maybe worth asking them?

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 15 Apr 24 - 09:03 AM

It gets weirder. I'm noticing differences in what tracks are available in the desktop app versus using Spotify in a web browser. Albums that aren't available in the app are showing in the browser. With some albums, all tracks show as available in the app but I get a message "can't play this song" when I click on them - but they're playable in the browser version. Some tracks that are greyed out as unavailable in my playlist are showing as available when I click through to the album - some not. I strongly suspect there's something gone badly wrong with Spotify's entire architecture, although strangely enough I don't see anyone else mentioning it online (like in the Spotify Help subreddit).

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Howard Jones
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 09:06 AM

I've just had a look today, using the free desktop version. Two of the albums mentioned above (Silly Sisters and Early Days) are visible to me. I haven't looked further.

Spotify have a problem with low-streaming tracks. They have now stopped paying for streams which don't meet a monthly threshold, on the basis that they don't generate much income, and this never reaches the artist anyway. This last excuse doesn't wash - either they don't understand how music aggregators work or they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. However they seem happy to still take punters' money to listen to these tracks.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: WillH
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 10:58 AM

This morning I was able to listen to June Tabor's "Plains Of Waterloo" on the Spotify mobile app, so not sure if that has come back onto the desktop app or web version for PCs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 01:06 PM

surprise surprise- this huge commercial company does not share our interest in folk music which does not meet their financial thresholds, and cares only for bottom line!

There is a current mudcat thread asking if anyone still buys Cds!- the message is clear to me....

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 01:21 PM

Looks like good news: Most of the music is now back on Spotify. But there still seems to be problems with the app - when I scroll through my folk playlist, there is still the occasional track greyed out and unplayable, but if I click through to the full album the track is there. If I click play on the offending track in the full album it plays, then if I go back to the playlist it's playable there too. So I think there are probably inadequacies in the Spotify app design that mean tracks in playlists take their time to show as available again when they come back online.

What's weird is that there are a couple of albums where a select few tracks are still completely unavailable to me - like the Pentangle album "The Time Has Come 1967-1973" there are still 10 tracks which are unavailable. I suspect this might have something to do with the fact that it's a compilation album and so the licensing is more complicated?

I suspect as I said before that this whole thing was probably a licensing snafu with a couple of labels not meeting a deadline or something.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 05:15 PM

My 'smart' phone thinks the entire Smithsonian-Folkways platform is a security risk.

Expect things to go about as well as their copyrights controls &c, and you won't be too surprised or disappointed.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 06:24 PM

Phil d'Conch wrote: My 'smart' phone thinks the entire Smithsonian-Folkways platform is a security risk.

The certificate for the site is from a non-trusted authority. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with the site itself. The problem is that it could have been set up by a baddie. But why impersonate something so low-traffic? :-)

(My wild conjecture, based on some complaints I've seen recently, is that it might be the result of a Microsoft security breach, but I could very well be wrong. All I know is that the signing authority isn't trusted.)

It might well clear up on or before May 11, when the certificate is due to be renewed.

If you actually want to buy something from them, it's probably safe. But it can't hurt to wait until May 11.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Apr 24 - 06:36 PM

There are some greyed out tracks removed for ownership disputes or removals, and some may click through to another album, where a version of the track occurs, due to licensing sources conflicting and prior interests.

I recently had an example where a song I own was released on an Australian Daniel O' Donnell compilation CD and streaming/download album, 'Irish Eyes'. However, when you click on the track, it diverts to the same recording supplied by another record company, on the album 'From the Heart', and that source gets the audited play.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 17 Apr 24 - 08:44 AM

Spotify also gets artists with the same name mixed up. I can think of one example where a reggae artist shares an artist profile page with a Scottish jazz singer of the same name. Both of their discographies are mixed up together as if they're the same artist. You'd think they'd have managed to figure out how to deal with this by now.

I've also had a scenario where I've had a studio track in a playlist for months only to have it suddenly switched out with a live version of the same track for reasons I never worked out. All kinds of shenanigans happens at Spotify.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 17 Apr 24 - 09:49 AM

Yes, James Phillips.. Google, Spotify and AI (sic), haven't altogether learned to differentiate between a Jazz Saxophonist Ronnie Ross and my brother kilt wearing MOR/Country/folk singing/accordion player Ronnie Ross.   Nor is it always seeing the difference between a cheesy tartan wearing Scotsman named Carl Wilson, and the Beach Boy Carl Wilson.   However the biggest annoyance for me with Spotify, is their putting on engine search pages headed 'Song and lyrics by...' with the recording artist being implied as being the writer, irrespective of who actually wrote the song.   This runs a horse and coach through composition/authorship copyright and paternity rights, even if metadata supplied when you click on is correct. This affects millions of songs.. but not one person or organisation from the music industry has moved to stop it.   All they are obsessed with is streaming royalties, not historical truth and protecting songwriters' paternity rights. The industry bodies are dogs with little teeth, who beg for scraps at the feet of Spotify and their ilk.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,James Phillips
Date: 18 Apr 24 - 03:40 PM

Another annoyance with Spotify is their insistence on dating albums with the date they were remastered instead of the date they were released. So on an artist’s “chronologically ordered” album page, an album they released in 1975 will be dated when it was remastered in 2008. I doubt whether one single person appreciates this formatting. And it’s not like they include detailed album information that would indicate the original release date, as you’d think they would.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 18 Apr 24 - 09:22 PM

Storage on personal disk is cheap.

Download, mix, modify, as you like.
Two hundred hard drives now sit on a chip the size of my little fingers nail.

What is your problem?

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

25 years ago the music world was going to be destroyed by Napster and Nero Burning ROM

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Apr 24 - 05:02 AM

As I said earlier, the problem is that a huge commercial operation is deciding purely on a commercial basis, which musical items are worth (in their understanding of the word, ie $$$$) retaining & making available for people.
This is not just for folk music, but presumably applies to other minority genres, like certain types of jazz, world music, blues etc.

Gargoyle- to download material is fine for most, but the material has to be there in the first place- that's the problem!

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 19 Apr 24 - 06:17 AM

> Two hundred hard drives now sit on a chip the size
> of my little fingers nail.

If you mean flash drives (USB or fixed), please note that these suffer from long-term bit rot. Basically each bit is stored as charge on a suspended gate, and this charge will leak away over a period of years. You'll need to plug the drive into something every few months to permit its internal software to power up and refresh the contents. (Magnetic media suffer similarly, for different reasons. Floppy discs, for example, aren't trustable for more than about five to ten years.)

And that, mesdames et messieurs, is (a small part of) why I as a hard-core techie have the greatest respect for hard copy for long-term data storage. End of core dump.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 19 Apr 24 - 06:24 AM

Spotify are pushing listeners to their listening page with Google headings of Song and lyrics by, even when the act who recorded it had nothing to do with the composition or authorship of the work.   It is an abhorrent and flagrant act of contempt for the creative process that led to the music they are pushing.   Without writers there would not have been the songs they flog to listeners.   Half of the time it is false enticement as the lyrics have not been officially supplied, and when they are they are often mangled or wrong in some way.   As I said earlier, greyed out songs are often due to conflicts of rights, either in the recording supplied or publishing agreements or deletion to make way for another album using the same track. Sometimes you may be re-directed when you click on, to another album with the same track, supplied by a different company or release agent. There may be differing and conflicting prior rights holders of the recording. In the past some parties leased out recordings to external companies on fixed period reversionary rights deals.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 20 Apr 24 - 11:34 PM

I have not not purchased ANY music in the last 25 years.
*

It is ALL available...

The funding folly of fools is frequently found.

Home burned CD of Spike Jones and 10 other Dan McGrew versions ... still plays without a skip after two decades.


Sincerely,
Gargoyle

* With the exception of "Murder Ballads"

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Roseey
Date: 21 Apr 24 - 02:27 AM

Gargoyle, you are on the wrong thread... the subject here is Spotify..and the pulling of music for various reasons. There was a separate thread on CD's and whether people still buy them. Plus the longevity of various drives and media.   Stop being a c---.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 21 Apr 24 - 04:36 PM

Not exactly unrelated subjects or solutions. Seems at least some of this thread's original premise might be the app's quality assurance/control (typically lacking) and not C-suite policy after all. That said…

What brick & mortar store ever kept all available product on the shelf forever? Commercial music outlets have been purging inventory since inventory. Why would the 'cloud' be any different? Massively redundant and distributed… with a carbon footprint and overhead to match, but… just another physical media format.

Relying on one format is asking for disappointment. Ask and ye shall receive. Music, movies, pictures, documents... if it's important to you, three formats in three locations. And don't skimp on proper archival materials neither.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: robomatic
Date: 21 Apr 24 - 05:53 PM

All media have strengths and weaknesses. The Domesday Book has lasted quite well, but I'm only aware of one of them.

Optical media sounds better than what it is. Much of it is cheap and short lasting (CDs with ultra thin metal layers sequestered within cheap plastic.

Magnetic media may be bad or good depending on quality. I've got some fifty year old cassettess in good condition. And a very few open reel tapes which held up from the 60s in time to be digitized.

Once digitized you are not 'safe' because you need to be able to play the encoded material.

I'll bet some player piano turns up on a distant planet with the only music left after millenia of human effort. Probably a Scott Joplin Rag.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: NightWing
Date: 23 Apr 24 - 08:46 PM

No storage media, of any kind, is "safe".

So?

Digital storage is the most convenient to back up and transfer to other media (today!!!). Store your music in multiple places, on multiple media. When new types of media appear, start storing your music there TOO.

But this thread's topic is streaming services and their poor conduct. The answer is easy: BOYCOTT!!! Hurt their bottom line and they'll stop being jerks ... or else they'll just plain STOP! (best outcome, in my opinion)

And, in order to do so, have your music stored locally. Which is, I think, what Gargoyle was saying.

BB,
NightWing

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Rossey
Date: 24 Apr 24 - 06:36 AM

The gist is Spotify often remove music and grey it out - rights owners change, rights owners go down the pan. Rarely, there is an artist or record company boycott. The recording may be removed or you may be redirected when you click on to another source supplied by another agency to Spotify. It's just a conduit platform like all others. And of course recently they announced that they were axing low payments to artists and writers - unless their tacks reach 1000 plays per year. When there are millions of tracks, this tips the balance on minority genres. Huge artists and conglomerates get fatter, small artists get ripped off and their albums and tracks are given away. The self created policy is copyright theft. I would remove product if I got the chance.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 24 Apr 24 - 03:32 PM

Juke boxes had track totalizers. The old guy that came in twice a month to change the records did not care what anybody thought they liked, or not. Pareto has not changed even one little bit (or byte) since. It has always been all about the 'hits.'

This thread: I maintain a large (600+ song) playlist of folk music on Spotify. There's a wide plethora of Irish, Scottish, English and Welsh folk music on there. Suddenly over the last few days, dozens of the tracks have disappeared from Spotify and are showing as greyed out in the playlist....

And: ...But this is not some mass protest or statement against Spotify - that would probably entail artists taking down their entire catalog like Joni Mitchell did a few years ago. This is partial pulling of one or two albums from artists' catalogs.

And as it turns out, we don't actually know what the problem is/was, bad policy or just an app hiccup. Was your digital juke box even plugged in and turned on?

Calling for connsumers that don't subscribe to boycott tracks that are not available isn't going to impress the bots sorting through Spotify's +50K uploads/day.

Subject: RE: Tech: Spotify has removed loads of folk music
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 24 Apr 24 - 05:21 PM

I went to Spotify 24 hours ago, for the first time.

For FREE, how can you "bitch?"

Every traditional folk song was there by multiple artists. Easy download.

Personally, I prefer the archive at LOC.gov

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

. It is a fool's folly that you seek. All music is a gift to the world, from the heart. The tighter you grasp the quicker it becomes, dust in the Wind.