FYI: 90% of this could be solved by Spotify managing their own catalog and payments instead of depending on for-profit, 3rd party aggregators like Distrokid (and hundreds of lesser knowns) to do it for them.
10 years ago or so I sent a text to my Nephew that a streaming service just played me one of his songs (I didn't ask it to) and his response was something along the lines of "Great! Now I can buy 1/13000th of a sandwich!" ... He made 6 albums, multiple world tours ... and he was broke. On the bright side he knew he would get screwed so he also worked on his other passion and is now a history professor. I remember when I read Steve Albini's essay 30 years ago called "The Problem With Music" on the music industry and the nasty little secrets it holds. It doesn't surprise me that they are creating new nasty little secrets still. Australian Casinos are also good for laundering money, but not so good you make a profit.
I'm a little confused why that would help - aren't all of the streams already "legitimate" as far as Spotify can tell? As long as organized crime is using real artists, it doesn't matter how good their music is (or isn't) because Spotify can't detect those streams as being bad
Yup, and nightlife/clubbing is ridden with organized crime as well. Security extortion, drug trafficking and dealing at venues, the whole nine yards - a bunch of lovely, wholesome folks all around you
Fun fact: The scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone casually talks about how Vito came to manage Johnny Fontaine, actually happened irl with Ol’ Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra
It's too bad the Soross funded elites wanted to shit on your country with all those refugees. Apparently letting the migrants into your home and feeding them didn't make them want to stop committing crimes against you.
I remember going to a seminar in Stockholm back in 2017 with a label rep giving advice to new producers: only focus on rap with young male talents with criminal background. Target audience: young urban girls with Spotify free subscriptions. They stream that shit 24/7. The news here never bring up the white collar crime aspects. They only focus on the violence.
When a crime happens in Sweden, many swedes go to the discussion board Flashback to find out more. It's often some "aspiring rapper" who got shot. Most of the time everyone says "Literally Who?". And every time som lowlife answers "Hey gramps, you know nothing of modern culture, the victim has 2 million streams a month on Spotify". Now we know why. It doesn't end there. Every year the state controlled radio channel P3 has an award event where artists gets awards, mostly based on the Spotify numbers.
@varesso7568 So, I'm basing that off the section of the video starting at 8:45 and Benn's previous video on the topic. The gist is: at the current rate per stream that Spotify commits to, their income from subscriptions and advertisements isn't enough. The only other funds they have to put towards paying out is the venture capital received from investors. From that we can say, in aggregate, the money being ultimately transferred to these criminals comes from subscribers, advertisers, and investors. This is particularly interesting because, from what we've frequently seen with other big tech companies, fundamental changes are more likely to occur when the advertisers and investors start to become upset. On the flip side, those same fundamental changes are less likely if just the end-user, subscribers, or content originators are affected (not always the case, but it often is). Hope that helps!
Thank you for shining a light on this issue! There is something else about this issue that is important for Swedes who care about music and culture: There are music charts that are based on Spotify plays, which makes this a self-feeding monster. 1. Buy Spotify plays 2. Artists with millions of bought plays will enter these charts 3. Since these artists are now on charts, they must be popular, right? Swedish radio starts playing them, because FOMO - if they are this big on Spotify, how have we missed them!?? 4. Same artists become legitimately popular, since they get a lot of radio plays, mentioned on TV, other channels, etc. 5. More Spotify plays! Lots of these artists have then gone on to win prestigious awards, even though we don't really know how many of them were popular in their own right.
This is not money laundering and it was an issue from the beginning, when charts were introduced on radio. Back in the vinyl times. Labels have been known to buyb their own records to simulate popularity
And don't forget that a lot of the lyrics encourage crime, and when played on the mainstream ends up inspiring impressionable youth who think gangs are cool...
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.” ― Hunter S. Thompson
It goes to show how rarely I see paper and coin cash here in Sweden, that it took me some time to realize that the bank notes on screen are Norwegian, not Swedish. :)
Thank you for actually calling these tactics fraud in your opening statement. There have been a handful of business bro podcasters bringing people on their shows to BRAG about committing literal fraud on Spotify. Some guy was claiming he makes $70,000 a month with bot plays across hundreds of artist accounts to avoid detection. WE NEED TO LITERALLY SEND PEOPLE LIKE THIS TO PRISON. Holy hell
As long as investment capital keeps subsidizing bad business then the bad business will continue. Disney sunk $400M into Vice Media all for naught, for example (and did this after other investors had also done similar).
I watched that exact same podcast with that guy. He was an absolute bafoon and was also in jail for 2 year prior to that interview for wire fraud. It's never a worthwhile long-term strategy.
@@CrystalMath_ yea I went and looked him up and found the court case where he stole like $4 million from his employer to pay for music gear (what a fucking loser). Goes to prison, then gets out AND STARTS BRAGGING ABOUT MORE FRAUD. What in the fuck is going on in this industry???!? We should be shunning people like that and anyone who works with them should lose all support/followers. We can't let shitheads like that dude and others keep controlling the music industry if we ever expect to have any amount of equality or justice for musicians.
Great video. This phenomenon isn't exclusive to Sweden btw, a lot of German and Swiss rappers use botted stream to make it to the top of the charts and knowing their ties to organized crime we can make an educated guess where the money to buy the botted streams is coming from...
Keep in mind Swedish police/crime statistics are worth nothing anymore. And everyone knows the reason. The prime example of good intentions gone wrong.
"How much of your money is going to a con artist?" Well considering Spotify gives away most of their royalties to the big 4 labels, I'd say about 90% of it.
The real reason Sweden got more violent is because they heard I will be moving from America to Sweden in a few years and they wanted me to feel more at home. I am thankful for Sweden being so kind to my feelings.
A lot of the companies making pokies are now into making gacha games like Raid: Shadow Legends - the returns are way better, because online games can be pushed onto minors, and because unlike pokies, there's not a legally-mandated return to the gambler for online games.
What's your take on Spotify not paying out on a track unless it has 1000 annual plays? I'd be hit, but I'm not in it for the money and I think I'm pretty rare.
They don't pay out on a track until it makes $.30 to $.50 .. thats 30 to 50 cents.. a much lower minimum than most institutions and companies will bother with.
before spotify, i knew a person that did structuring payment laundering for very rich people using itunes. it worked well back then because the purchase prices were much larger than stream payments... i seriously doubt it's possible now, this was back in like 2010-2012.
The older I get, the more i realize how very very few legitimate ways people make real (good) money in this world outside of working for corporations... and those corporations are likely doing the shady stuff for you
internet utopians didn't see that one coming did they after 30 years we can come to the conclusion that digital was a mistake the move from lp to cd and portastudio to usb interfaces wasnt worth the massive societal changes short of academia/medecine, Ive yet to see an upside/progress
There was a real strange ad with some dude in Camo behind a shitty “interlaced” effect advertising some documentary he made about something big coming. Might be worth your next deep dive.
For me, it re-inforces the sense I've had that entities that hard broadcast paid advertisements on UA-cam likely have a shady aspect. Distrokid, VPNs etc ... a topic you discussed a while back.
Benn I honestly love you for these videos. You bring some of the most interesting and unusual content on this platform. I wish I had found your channel sooner.
Thanks for shining a light on this. Musicians may not be the only ones hurt by this (since the royalty pool is diverted to scammers): presumably, these click farms use free Spotify accounts - if that's the case, then advertisers are paying to show ads to bots
@@Joe-sg9ll ads help fund the videos you watch on this platform and free music on Spotify. Screwing over advertisers hurts the creators you like to watch/listen to
Excellent reporting on this. This is small news compared to money laundering but I've noticed fake albums on Spotify as well. I'm not sure how prevalent this is but I've seen old reddit posts of jazz fans complaining about it when they're trying to search past artists like Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, Johnny Smith. I've encountered it looking up Gary Numan and Tubeway Army. The band Dramatis' album "For Future Reference" from 1981 has been recycled into 5 newer albums with nearly identical track listings, but shittier album art. There's 2 fake Dramatis albums: 2009's "The Dramatis Project" and 2012's "This is... Dramatis". There's the fake 2012 Tubeway Army albums "Ex Luna Scientia", 2016's "I Only Rewind", and the fake Gary Numan album from 2016 "Terrestial Channels".
Those are not fake, they are being released by whoever owns the royalty to the songs. If it is the artist themselves its them that's re-releasing it to Spotify that way...
my music has been added onto botted playlists for unknown reasons and i'm always worried when it happens. i've never paid to be on a playlist and i always try to reach out and get it removed when it notice it. maybe it's part of trying to make the playlist seem legit?
I did it the old fashioned way: built a brand and worked hard. I'm over 100k streams a week and proud from a fully organic campaign (i.e no ads or boosts)
Which came about from some of the founders being in Sweden's Pirate Party Which is honestly, so unironically based. Intellectual property law has become nothing but a corporate golem, but nothing exemplifies that better than Disney's lobbying
Super interesting videos thank you for bringing this out to light, it sucks that small artists are getting screwed up by their peers too on top of corporations and greedy labels. I've been looking for an alternative to Spotify for a while now and got recommended on of your videos. I'd love to hear your in depth toughts on how streaming services are ruining how we discover and listen to music. Keep up all the good things you are doing to help artists out, music needs more people like you around
@@metalxmetalxmetalxmetalx no its really simple the engineers tasked with solving the fraud get paid less than the engineers doing the fraud it's really no ones fault but spotify
Stole this joke from a friend, but it fits. Given their CEO invests in "defense" companies Yeah I support LGBT: Lockheed Martin General Dynamics Boeing The Raytheon Technologies Corporation
Right about now The Hells Angels, The Commisso “Family” (who are “allegedly” part of the Ndrangheta) and Los Zetas Cartel are looking more ethical than Spotify, at least the three mentioned are upfront about what they do.
As an up-and-coming fraudster new to the space but full of drive and love for the game, I’m glad to have discovered this video before 100k views. Shoutout to the youtube algo coming in clutch and Benn for the insightful content.
As usual, great video Benn. If I could request a topic for a future video; as a long time bedroom producer who get pleasantly surprised when I get over 100 streams on a song, what kind of options for promotion and exposure are there for people like me? Completely independent, trying my best to do in house mixing mastering and artwork etc, only thing that I can't just DIY are more ears on my work
how does this tie in to the recent reporting that spotify is thinking of changing payouts to quash various types of content they feel is not "legit" enough to receive a payout?
Hey. It still works on UA-cam too. There are several "musicians" from the Dominican Republic involved into it. They admit it publicly and only 2 of them got their channels banned. In one specific case more than 90% of the video views seem to come from bots. 30 milllion views per month.
And Spotify is just about to make life worse for the genuine musicians out there by refusing payouts on songs with less than 1,000 streams. That’s more money going straight to AI artists and Swedish organised crime.
Interesting, does that mean this schema could be done in all services that are similar e.g. youtube..impressions and ad clicks, google ad etc thx for the education
Any decent accountant can make your ill gotten gains "look" legal for the gubment, it ain't that difficult, that's why most of our politicians aren't in prison when they take massive amounts of dark money from superPAC. You place WAY too much credit on the IRS who will ignore your gains as long as an accountant makes them look mostly legal, IRS don't have time or energy to comb thru every punters finances.
@@OMG-KMB Benn's patreon perks promise one chunk of DMT. DMT is an illegal hallucinogenic substance. Using standardized advertising formats to make protest statements against [capitalism/drug laws/etc.] is called culture jamming.
@@OMG-KMB watch the last segment again real closely, specifically the Patreon perks 😉 there's a few items in the list towards the bottom that were hilariously just kinda quietly included ironically, that the typical Patreon creator wouldn't dare. Either that or I am owed some DMT I wasn't aware of 😂
a german public broadcaster did an uncover thing a few years ago where the reporter (with no musiccal history) made a hip-hop track with the help of a good producer, released it and got it to chart by buying listens from a hacker. The thesis of the report according to the anonymous respondents they dug up, the artists probably don't know their success is down (at least partly) to money laundering.
I’m a naturalised Swede & while I knew that Spotify aren’t doing too well (laying off staff & suing Apple Music just for starters), I’ve not previously heard abt the SvD article. One major issue that is fueling the continuation of the situation as described - which partly ties in with the comment made by Spotify in the aforementioned article - is that Sweden doesn’t currently employ witness anonymity and/or protection, so even when cases do reach the courts, chances are that no-one (presuming they’re still here) is prepared to give evidence or testify for the prosecution/DA. The supposed rationale behind this is bc ppl wld be more likely to fabricate accusations or give false statements if they were allowed to remain anonymous…
Geez, you are a video making genius. Can't fathom how you pack so much quality into every vid. Poor swedes and everybody suffering the consequences of this shit. Terrible.
Haven't even reached 2 1/2 minutes yet, but I couldn't help but laugh when you called the Swedes hardcore while showing a picture of the Insane Clown Posse 😂😂😂 that was gold 🤘😎👍
FYI: 90% of this could be solved by Spotify managing their own catalog and payments instead of depending on for-profit, 3rd party aggregators like Distrokid (and hundreds of lesser knowns) to do it for them.
You should put a trigger warning for Danish viewers: far too much positive said about Sweden already in the first 2 minutes!
thats dumb as fuck
Well they own shares of Distrokid so they are profitting on this both ways so they clearly have no interests in doing so I guess LOL...
10 years ago or so I sent a text to my Nephew that a streaming service just played me one of his songs (I didn't ask it to) and his response was something along the lines of "Great! Now I can buy 1/13000th of a sandwich!" ... He made 6 albums, multiple world tours ... and he was broke. On the bright side he knew he would get screwed so he also worked on his other passion and is now a history professor.
I remember when I read Steve Albini's essay 30 years ago called "The Problem With Music" on the music industry and the nasty little secrets it holds. It doesn't surprise me that they are creating new nasty little secrets still.
Australian Casinos are also good for laundering money, but not so good you make a profit.
I'm a little confused why that would help - aren't all of the streams already "legitimate" as far as Spotify can tell? As long as organized crime is using real artists, it doesn't matter how good their music is (or isn't) because Spotify can't detect those streams as being bad
The music industry has always rubbed shoulders with organized crime.
Before Spotify, party promotion was the way to go.
I think organized crime is so prevalent that it rubs shoulders with ALL legitimate industries and institutions
Yup, and nightlife/clubbing is ridden with organized crime as well. Security extortion, drug trafficking and dealing at venues, the whole nine yards - a bunch of lovely, wholesome folks all around you
Fun fact: The scene in The Godfather where Michael Corleone casually talks about how Vito came to manage Johnny Fontaine, actually happened irl with Ol’ Blue Eyes Frank Sinatra
the whole art industry is rigged and is corrupted with organized crime even in italy
As a swede I thank you for shining light on this madness
It's too bad the Soross funded elites wanted to shit on your country with all those refugees. Apparently letting the migrants into your home and feeding them didn't make them want to stop committing crimes against you.
Yeah Benn's a real one
Another swede here agreeing heartily.
@Cheeses_K_Riced It's the way our species works *under capitalism. To truly change things, we need to end (and replace) the system
I remember going to a seminar in Stockholm back in 2017 with a label rep giving advice to new producers: only focus on rap with young male talents with criminal background. Target audience: young urban girls with Spotify free subscriptions. They stream that shit 24/7.
The news here never bring up the white collar crime aspects. They only focus on the violence.
When a crime happens in Sweden, many swedes go to the discussion board Flashback to find out more. It's often some "aspiring rapper" who got shot. Most of the time everyone says "Literally Who?". And every time som lowlife answers "Hey gramps, you know nothing of modern culture, the victim has 2 million streams a month on Spotify". Now we know why.
It doesn't end there. Every year the state controlled radio channel P3 has an award event where artists gets awards, mostly based on the Spotify numbers.
>lowlife
wow, swedes are just fine being openly racist?
Dang, so it's not just subscribers paying criminals to launder money, it's advertisers and Spotify's own investors. Absolutely insane.
100% nailed it.
It's a big old circle.
Our entire economy is some sort of con job, hustle and/or rip off
where did you get this from?
@varesso7568 So, I'm basing that off the section of the video starting at 8:45 and Benn's previous video on the topic. The gist is: at the current rate per stream that Spotify commits to, their income from subscriptions and advertisements isn't enough. The only other funds they have to put towards paying out is the venture capital received from investors. From that we can say, in aggregate, the money being ultimately transferred to these criminals comes from subscribers, advertisers, and investors. This is particularly interesting because, from what we've frequently seen with other big tech companies, fundamental changes are more likely to occur when the advertisers and investors start to become upset. On the flip side, those same fundamental changes are less likely if just the end-user, subscribers, or content originators are affected (not always the case, but it often is). Hope that helps!
@@varesso75688:55 where he talks about his other video discussing Spotify’s fails
Thank you for shining a light on this issue! There is something else about this issue that is important for Swedes who care about music and culture: There are music charts that are based on Spotify plays, which makes this a self-feeding monster.
1. Buy Spotify plays
2. Artists with millions of bought plays will enter these charts
3. Since these artists are now on charts, they must be popular, right? Swedish radio starts playing them, because FOMO - if they are this big on Spotify, how have we missed them!??
4. Same artists become legitimately popular, since they get a lot of radio plays, mentioned on TV, other channels, etc.
5. More Spotify plays!
Lots of these artists have then gone on to win prestigious awards, even though we don't really know how many of them were popular in their own right.
This is not money laundering and it was an issue from the beginning, when charts were introduced on radio. Back in the vinyl times. Labels have been known to buyb their own records to simulate popularity
They still do it to this day, same with books
And don't forget that a lot of the lyrics encourage crime, and when played on the mainstream ends up inspiring impressionable youth who think gangs are cool...
It's like Payola 2.0.
Are you describing Ice Spice? 😂
“The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
This needs to be a whole series. How to launder money in the music industry in every country. This is the kind of investigative journalism we need.
It goes to show how rarely I see paper and coin cash here in Sweden, that it took me some time to realize that the bank notes on screen are Norwegian, not Swedish. :)
Its the old norwegian bank notes too
Yeah I noticed instantly that they were wrong, but hey, it's the message that counts
So many times some sketchy local artist has told me their album got streamed a bajillion times in Sweden.
Now I know why.
Thank you for actually calling these tactics fraud in your opening statement. There have been a handful of business bro podcasters bringing people on their shows to BRAG about committing literal fraud on Spotify. Some guy was claiming he makes $70,000 a month with bot plays across hundreds of artist accounts to avoid detection. WE NEED TO LITERALLY SEND PEOPLE LIKE THIS TO PRISON. Holy hell
As long as investment capital keeps subsidizing bad business then the bad business will continue. Disney sunk $400M into Vice Media all for naught, for example (and did this after other investors had also done similar).
I watched that exact same podcast with that guy. He was an absolute bafoon and was also in jail for 2 year prior to that interview for wire fraud. It's never a worthwhile long-term strategy.
@@CrystalMath_ yea I went and looked him up and found the court case where he stole like $4 million from his employer to pay for music gear (what a fucking loser). Goes to prison, then gets out AND STARTS BRAGGING ABOUT MORE FRAUD. What in the fuck is going on in this industry???!?
We should be shunning people like that and anyone who works with them should lose all support/followers. We can't let shitheads like that dude and others keep controlling the music industry if we ever expect to have any amount of equality or justice for musicians.
so you CAN make money on spotify 😮who knew
Instructions unclear; I won a Grammy.
You now can be called "Fly Weight".
Great video. This phenomenon isn't exclusive to Sweden btw, a lot of German and Swiss rappers use botted stream to make it to the top of the charts and knowing their ties to organized crime we can make an educated guess where the money to buy the botted streams is coming from...
Keep in mind Swedish police/crime statistics are worth nothing anymore. And everyone knows the reason. The prime example of good intentions gone wrong.
I did not expect you to cover this topic. This was big news in Sweden not long ago.
"How much of your money is going to a con artist?"
Well considering Spotify gives away most of their royalties to the big 4 labels, I'd say about 90% of it.
The real reason Sweden got more violent is because they heard I will be moving from America to Sweden in a few years and they wanted me to feel more at home. I am thankful for Sweden being so kind to my feelings.
Man, moving from a 4th world country to a 3rd world country. You must love pain. Why don't you move to a nice place?
I saw this video reposted on tik tok, with no credit. But im glad i found the original video.
Love from sweden 🇸🇪
In Australia, up until recently, money laundering was done mostly in Casinos and local clubs where they had gambling machines (pokies).
A lot of the companies making pokies are now into making gacha games like Raid: Shadow Legends - the returns are way better, because online games can be pushed onto minors, and because unlike pokies, there's not a legally-mandated return to the gambler for online games.
New South Wales's premier sure knew a thing or two about (profiting off of and aiding) it
Laundering money on casinos was (and to a point might still be) one of the oldest and easiest tricks in the book all across the world.
yeah that's been a main staple of the crime world, from Japan to Murica, casino's are ridiculously easy to launder money in
Which part of aus you at? I’m Melbourne
What's your take on Spotify not paying out on a track unless it has 1000 annual plays? I'd be hit, but I'm not in it for the money and I think I'm pretty rare.
They don't pay out on a track until it makes $.30 to $.50 .. thats 30 to 50 cents.. a much lower minimum than most institutions and companies will bother with.
before spotify, i knew a person that did structuring payment laundering for very rich people using itunes. it worked well back then because the purchase prices were much larger than stream payments... i seriously doubt it's possible now, this was back in like 2010-2012.
this person ended up getting caught for at least some of these transactions, do not do this.
The older I get, the more i realize how very very few legitimate ways people make real (good) money in this world outside of working for corporations... and those corporations are likely doing the shady stuff for you
True, unfortunately
Great research and presentation, Benn. Thanks for shining a light on this
Thank you Benn, it's a bit depressing to see how digital culture is really making harder for musicians and artist.
Welcome to humanity
Especially when it was supposed to make it easier…relatively speaking.
internet utopians didn't see that one coming did they
after 30 years we can come to the conclusion that digital was a mistake
the move from lp to cd and portastudio to usb interfaces wasnt worth the massive societal changes
short of academia/medecine, Ive yet to see an upside/progress
Before the digital age it was even worse?? Nothing really changed everything just got easier 🤷
You will be happy to see the solution presented in the PDF on unbounded capitals website
There was a real strange ad with some dude in Camo behind a shitty “interlaced” effect advertising some documentary he made about something big coming. Might be worth your next deep dive.
For me, it re-inforces the sense I've had that entities that hard broadcast paid advertisements on UA-cam likely have a shady aspect. Distrokid, VPNs etc ... a topic you discussed a while back.
You think ?
Benn I honestly love you for these videos. You bring some of the most interesting and unusual content on this platform. I wish I had found your channel sooner.
Oh yeah gotta sit down for this video
Thanks for shining a light on this. Musicians may not be the only ones hurt by this (since the royalty pool is diverted to scammers): presumably, these click farms use free Spotify accounts - if that's the case, then advertisers are paying to show ads to bots
@@Joe-sg9ll ads help fund the videos you watch on this platform and free music on Spotify. Screwing over advertisers hurts the creators you like to watch/listen to
@@loopop so send the creator a single dollar and you'll give them more money than your ad views would've gotten them.
Excellent reporting on this. This is small news compared to money laundering but I've noticed fake albums on Spotify as well. I'm not sure how prevalent this is but I've seen old reddit posts of jazz fans complaining about it when they're trying to search past artists like Herb Ellis, Barney Kessel, Johnny Smith.
I've encountered it looking up Gary Numan and Tubeway Army. The band Dramatis' album "For Future Reference" from 1981 has been recycled into 5 newer albums with nearly identical track listings, but shittier album art.
There's 2 fake Dramatis albums: 2009's "The Dramatis Project" and 2012's "This is... Dramatis". There's the fake 2012 Tubeway Army albums "Ex Luna Scientia", 2016's "I Only Rewind", and the fake Gary Numan album from 2016 "Terrestial Channels".
So random that a bunch of it is Gary Numan!
Those are not fake, they are being released by whoever owns the royalty to the songs. If it is the artist themselves its them that's re-releasing it to Spotify that way...
my music has been added onto botted playlists for unknown reasons and i'm always worried when it happens. i've never paid to be on a playlist and i always try to reach out and get it removed when it notice it. maybe it's part of trying to make the playlist seem legit?
I did it the old fashioned way: built a brand and worked hard. I'm over 100k streams a week and proud from a fully organic campaign (i.e no ads or boosts)
Speaking of pirating digital content, the Pirate Bay was founded by Swedes 😅 I love Swedes and have a few Swedish friends ❤
Swedish programmer and μTorrent creator, Ludvig Strigeus, is one of the brains behind Spotify. It's basically p2p torrent tech.
Which came about from some of the founders being in Sweden's Pirate Party
Which is honestly, so unironically based. Intellectual property law has become
nothing but a corporate golem, but nothing exemplifies that better than Disney's lobbying
@@RadikaRules The Pirate Bay was founded 3 years before the (political) Pirate Party was, fyi.
I just had to chuckle when I read your video title, that's genius 😂
You have a brand new subscriber
Super interesting videos thank you for bringing this out to light, it sucks that small artists are getting screwed up by their peers too on top of corporations and greedy labels.
I've been looking for an alternative to Spotify for a while now and got recommended on of your videos. I'd love to hear your in depth toughts on how streaming services are ruining how we discover and listen to music. Keep up all the good things you are doing to help artists out, music needs more people like you around
I’m a software engineer who works in the stream royalties collections and writes software to fight streaming fraud. It’s awful.
Do Android Streams Electronically Thieve? (shitty Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? joke lol)
Explain to me why it’s so easy to bot
@@metalxmetalxmetalxmetalx you tell us haha. You're the one with over 60,000 subscribers on less than 500 total channel views 😆
@@metalxmetalxmetalxmetalx no its really simple the engineers tasked with solving the fraud get paid less than the engineers doing the fraud it's really no ones fault but spotify
@@kirkydaturkey nice try bro. U seem mad salty I’ve had this UA-cam since 2013 and I used to be a successful UA-camr.
8:14 What do you mean with this? Can you give an example
Spotify always making the most ethical decisions!
Stole this joke from a friend, but it fits. Given their CEO invests in "defense" companies
Yeah I support LGBT:
Lockheed Martin
General Dynamics
Boeing
The Raytheon Technologies Corporation
Right about now The Hells Angels, The Commisso “Family” (who are “allegedly” part of the Ndrangheta) and Los Zetas Cartel are looking more ethical than Spotify, at least the three mentioned are upfront about what they do.
As an up-and-coming fraudster new to the space but full of drive and love for the game, I’m glad to have discovered this video before 100k views.
Shoutout to the youtube algo coming in clutch and Benn for the insightful content.
As usual, great video Benn. If I could request a topic for a future video; as a long time bedroom producer who get pleasantly surprised when I get over 100 streams on a song, what kind of options for promotion and exposure are there for people like me? Completely independent, trying my best to do in house mixing mastering and artwork etc, only thing that I can't just DIY are more ears on my work
Great video. The more I watch you, the more I respect you.
how does this tie in to the recent reporting that spotify is thinking of changing payouts to quash various types of content they feel is not "legit" enough to receive a payout?
Hey. It still works on UA-cam too. There are several "musicians" from the Dominican Republic involved into it. They admit it publicly and only 2 of them got their channels banned. In one specific case more than 90% of the video views seem to come from bots. 30 milllion views per month.
I wonder what happened and who arrived in 2015 in sweden
You allowed me to laugh substantially instead of simply being depressed. Thanks.
Outstanding work as usual, Benn 👏🏼
Always interesting when you are digging into the inner works of how streaming platforms work!
And Spotify is just about to make life worse for the genuine musicians out there by refusing payouts on songs with less than 1,000 streams. That’s more money going straight to AI artists and Swedish organised crime.
Ok. Benefit #8 pushed me over the edge of deciding what next patreon to join ^^. ❤
What are the options for shipping the chunk of DMT to New Zealand?
Asking for a friend.
Really, really, nice video, Benn. Subscribed. Keep them coming!
benn never fails to give us side hustle ideas 🗣️‼️
Interesting, does that mean this schema could be done in all services that are similar e.g. youtube..impressions and ad clicks, google ad etc
thx for the education
Do you think it was this video that caused all your music to be ripped from streaming services?
Of course it was. It was definitely a "fuck you in particular" move.
and I thought sucking at music was the worst thing...I'm kinda glad my music sucks now, Benn you're better than ambien, ty.
is it wrong that i laughed my way through this video?
it's like half-as-interesting broke out of the bin
8:47 math is not right. Sweden tax is around 24% so if you make 3800 it be like 2900 after tax. Minus 1200 it comes to $1700 profit. Not great
Not using Swedish bills for representing our money was a nice touch, mr. American! 😂
Hahahha. I was about to mention the use of the neighbour's currency in some parts. Still wondering if it was intentional, though.
Thank you for your videos Benn, amazing content
I'm so happy to have had a chance to watch this video before the YT Overlords flag it for whatever keywords they deem inappropriate at the time
What is the volcano thing behind your head?
Any decent accountant can make your ill gotten gains "look" legal for the gubment, it ain't that difficult, that's why most of our politicians aren't in prison when they take massive amounts of dark money from superPAC. You place WAY too much credit on the IRS who will ignore your gains as long as an accountant makes them look mostly legal, IRS don't have time or energy to comb thru every punters finances.
One chunk of DMT hahaha I see you. Culture jamming at it's finest 😍
Help me understand 😅😂
@@OMG-KMB Benn's patreon perks promise one chunk of DMT. DMT is an illegal hallucinogenic substance. Using standardized advertising formats to make protest statements against [capitalism/drug laws/etc.] is called culture jamming.
I thought that was a nice option.
@@OMG-KMB watch the last segment again real closely, specifically the Patreon perks 😉 there's a few items in the list towards the bottom that were hilariously just kinda quietly included ironically, that the typical Patreon creator wouldn't dare. Either that or I am owed some DMT I wasn't aware of 😂
Absolutely wild. And a phenomenal telling of the story/what’s going on.
If if Itunes ripped off musicians, why would anyone think Spotify wouldn't do the same?
It's so absurdly easy when there's nothing physical to show for money one spent
Benn, at 4:38 that's Norwegian notes, not Swedish : )
The most interesting and surprising video report i've seen on youtube in a long time!
Interesting! This reminds me of the "Black Mafia Family" from Detroit, where they were laundering money through rap concerts
a german public broadcaster did an uncover thing a few years ago where the reporter (with no musiccal history) made a hip-hop track with the help of a good producer, released it and got it to chart by buying listens from a hacker. The thesis of the report according to the anonymous respondents they dug up, the artists probably don't know their success is down (at least partly) to money laundering.
ua-cam.com/video/qiqYuSQwkHo/v-deo.htmlsi=A81PuSxC2IlugFaJ
"If you enjoy this type of content" - Enjoyment is debatable, but I definitely value it. 😆
I've had two houses blown up within one mile away from my house in the past year lol. It's crazy what prohibition can do to a nation.
Yeah Sweden is way too anti drug.
this was great!
Came for the sensational headline, stayed for the dark humor
"Gets to meet robbers" 😂
Absolutely fabulous and brilliant video, Thank you Benn!!!!!
also spotify has just announced that it won‘t pay out streaming money for songs below 1000 plays a year
I’m a naturalised Swede & while I knew that Spotify aren’t doing too well (laying off staff & suing Apple Music just for starters), I’ve not previously heard abt the SvD article.
One major issue that is fueling the continuation of the situation as described - which partly ties in with the comment made by Spotify in the aforementioned article - is that Sweden doesn’t currently employ witness anonymity and/or protection, so even when cases do reach the courts, chances are that no-one (presuming they’re still here) is prepared to give evidence or testify for the prosecution/DA.
The supposed rationale behind this is bc ppl wld be more likely to fabricate accusations or give false statements if they were allowed to remain anonymous…
Geez, you are a video making genius. Can't fathom how you pack so much quality into every vid. Poor swedes and everybody suffering the consequences of this shit. Terrible.
Such a fascinating combination of music, technology, and crime!
Signed up for the chunk. Don't you let me down Ben, you beautiful entity you!
Is it this the reason why i getting mainly music making ads in my Spotify, when i live one of nordic countries?
Yet another reason to use an ad blocker
Sorry to hear about your music. Best of luck to you
If you just buy streams without doing anything else criminal would you still go to prison?
Hey Benn, what's the first song that you're playing in the video? Loving that choon!
Don't forget the educational purposes disclaimer
Thank you for digging into this. I hope it gives Daniel Ek something to think about.
That implies he has a conscience
@@RadikaRules and ethics
@@sawtooth808 Kinda goes without saying, but yes
Thank you for the excellent meaningful thoughtful content as always.
Haven't even reached 2 1/2 minutes yet, but I couldn't help but laugh when you called the Swedes hardcore while showing a picture of the Insane Clown Posse 😂😂😂 that was gold 🤘😎👍
When somebody tells you, "you will probably go to prison", just know they are lying
Using a dab pen to hold a lav mic is beautiful
My inner music nerd was waiting for you to say Reason as one of the things you think of about Sweden.
And Yngwie Malmsteen.
As an Icelander I am highly offended! There are 42 of us 😁
All this would change the instant Spotify paid the artists directly from the streamer.
🎉 this is a streamer
What should I call them? Consumer of music ? Streamer seemed a good way to put it@@puvendranpillay8802
Another amazing Benn video. 😍
I have found this information most valuable Mister Jordan, most valuable.
Wait, does a chunk of dmt really come w patroon sub?
Talk about a descent into madness, holy crap!! 🤯