How A Silent Album Robbed Spotify Of $20,000

👇 SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE VIDEOS 👇
www.youtube.co...
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe:www.youtube.co...
Twitch: / helloyassine
Twitter: / themindofhy
Instagram: / helloyassine

[@jyjjy7]

Track 2 on the Ciccone Youth album is NOT actually silence, or not pure silence anyway. Approximately 25 years ago, when CD burners were cutting edge tech, I was a computer nerd and bought one. Being able to make mix CDs instead of mix tapes made me super cool at the time 😎 But anyway I decided one of my mixes needed a palette cleansing section of silence and the simpliest way i could think of to do this was to just rip the silent track from that Ciccone Youth CD. However, a standard feature of cd ripping/burning software was volume normalization which makes sure the different volumes of music from different CDs would be adjusted to levels that were equal. When the software normalized the volume of the silent track it revealed that there was a muffled recording of people talking that could be heard if the gain was increased about 100 times. The recording was muffled to the point you couldn't make out the conversation apart from a word here or there, but one of the people talking sounded like it was likely Kim. I posted about it on a forum for SY but it was news to everyone there and there was no further information.

[@mikehunt5926]

that’s so sicc

[@pjforde1978]

Hey Kool Thing, have you ever heard of Apophenia? It's when the human brain detects patterns where there are none. While dubious, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt integrity-wise but science doesn't support the idea that you can hear muffled talking on Silence if you simply turn up the gain to infinity. In fact, I think that they did this on X-Files once, when they amplified the holy grail so much that they were able to pick up the residual vibrations of Jesus talking or something equally plausible. In reality, what you're describing - creating signal out of mechanical friction - is sort of the CSI "Enhance" of sound engineering. Fun story, tho!

[@GrandHighGamer]

The version on bandcamp is amplified, and yeah you can definitely hear talking at points (sounds reversed, maybe?), but it's below the noise floor so it's impossible to make out.

[@T3n50r]

Probably no further news because you may very well have been the first person that found out about it. They might have "recorded" the studio silence but professional high quality mics can pick up A SHITLOAD, so it may have been the people in the background talking in a different room that made just enough noise that the mic picked it up at a super low level (maybe even the lowest of sounds it can pick up). The band itself may not even have known about it until you shed some light on it about what you heard.

[@pjforde1978]

@@T3n50r I’d buy that if the OP was working with the original master tapes, but it’s a remarkable stretch to imagine sound that needs 100x logarithmic amplification surviving a mastering process.

[@apoplexiamusic]

Spotify is the bad guy in every situation where music is involved.

[@leon_pp]

A good amount of artists are discovered each day by new fans through Spotify. On a whole, they help spread the noise.

[@nbshftr]

​​@@leon_pp that is nothing exclusive to spotify or anything theyve chosen to do besides existing

[@nbshftr]

@@itsbrd2494 a platform doing the bare minimum in a vacuum means nothing if they actively do horrible shit

[@Rollmops94]

The industry is always the bad guy, which merely proves musicians are also just people. People cooperating often leads to conflict. The bands, who are visible in public, display everything from their own, disturbed perspective. The fans hear that and come to the conclusion, that the label is evil.

[@kotakotik22]

​@@itsbrd2494they're saying Spotify did the bare minimum (you can't really exist without an "algorithm" anymore), and nothing more

[@vina5428]

I believe "Sleepify" was recorded in "analog silence" (somewhere around -60dB and higher) while Spotify was programmed to only detect "digital silence" which is at -100dB

[@AndyChannelle]

Steal is a very strong word. They just worked out how to cheese the system.

[@tanmang42]

The problem is that because of the scummy setup Spotify made, they were inadvertently "stealing" from other artists. IIRC Spotify divvies up their revenue based on share of listens. In other words, if these guys cheesed $20,000, that money isn't coming out of Spotify's pockets, it's being redirected from other artist's income. It'd be like a workplace having some budget set to all employees, with pay being distributed on contributions, then someone finding a way of artificially boosting their contribution. Employer is fucked for setting the system up, the employee is a dick for screwing with everyone else's honest efforts to make money. Real fucked up system and a pretty unethical way of abusing it IMO.

[@PKNproductions]

$20,000 isn't even that much when you think about the fact that its a band of four guys and they do this fulltime as a living. Like yeah, $5,000 a person is a nice amount to get, but considering this was such a highly publicized moment -- the thing that literally put this band in the public eye -- it really isn't a remarkable amount.

[@jonstechchannel]

right? 20k isn't anything for a multimillion dollar company

[@tanmang42]

@@jonstechchannel Except it's not coming out of Spotify's pocket. Because of how they structure their payment model, it's coming out of the pockets of other artists.

[@joshgerber754]

Another fun part of this story is that Vulf was planning on doing a second album like sleepify but they planned on giving people $1 for coming to their shows instead of making it free. Unfortunately Spotify put an end to that quickly and it never panned out.

[@mathiasborrani2571]

I like how you used the album as background music for the video

[@OnNightmareRadio]

Spotify asks for album to be removed. Band: “why” Spotify: *silence*

[@leckyent]

Yassine, these videos are top tier. I remember watching a video from you every now and then, when you used to upload about recent topics. These new documentary style videos are even better I've been watching ever since you first started releasing these.

[@helloyassine]

Thanks a lot man!

[@ItsaB3AR]

The main issue with Spotify's payment wasn't covered in this video. Rather than giving artists $X per play, they pay 70% of Spotify's earnings, divided among the songs, weighted by what was played more. This has caused issues because of people that make AI music or barely music, then have someone with a room full of phones play it over and over to take money from the real artists. If the pay per stream was a set value, rather than a % of a %, artists would make more. All that I mentioned was leaving out the record labels too, who always get their grubby hands on the cash first.

[@nwerd7584]

I remember finding out about the 30 second limit and felt so bad for grind bands with thousands of songs under 30 seconds. But I stopped using spotify when they banned thousands of albums I love dearly for lyrics and historical themes they dislike. They still have the album information, and many are there but just unable to play. total BS. ALL streaming services did this so for most of my music I went back to what I did for years.. Have a giant local FLAC and physical vinyl collection. Fuck centralized streaming like that. Even stuff like discogs is on board with banning the sales of those albums. forcing the bands to do it secretly so google cant ban their links. Also labels do this paying for plays thing for decades and still do to this day, the thing is labels are allowed to.. some artists can too.. just not what spotify or the current zeitgeist doesn't want popular

[@MarcPlaysDrums]

Yeah, I remember this…I actually streamed that album😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@made.online2149]

How Spotify robbed musicians of billions of dollars

[@microsoft.co.u]

i wouldnt know of 98% of musician i listen to without spotify. that means 0 money to all of them

[@RealHomeRecording]

*How Napster robbed musicians of billions of dollars. I fixed that for you.

[@MOSMASTERING]

@@RealHomeRecording It's well documented that people that were never going to pay for music anyway meant Napster made very little difference. Have you watched the documentary on Spotify? Their entire model was to take people from PirateBay and charge them. Nobody thought it would work. People are willing to pay. The only problem is, Spotify now takes the majority of that income for themselves. Its convenient paying £10 a month and getting unlimited music. But now, because its such a prominent platform, artists are forced to use it for exposure or to make any money from streams at all. I'm a musician, I spend my day promoting myself on social media, teaching, writing, mixing, mastering, networking and getting songs released to streaming platforms. The amount of listeners I have does not equate to a sustainable career! It would have in the 90s when those people woulad have bought the CD to listen, but now, it's not a viable career for anyone that isn't at the top of the charts. I'm forced to gig and tour to make ends meet. People (supposedly) love music.. its an artform. It takes effort and a lifetime of practice and dedication - and we are paid peanuts. Many EDM artists have to tour and DJ to make their money because nobody is buying Vinyl singles anymore. A few people streaming a single means nothing to the artist. Musicans below mid-tier are getting historically paid less than they ever have done. Listen to the charts - its awful, unlistainable garbage. People with talent may just stop bothering and that will be music's greatest loss

[@Jalmaan]

Spotify still hasn't turned a profit, ever

[@silentm999]

Unfortunately, art and big commerce will never get along. I say stay independent. With the internet at your fingertips, you can find 1000+ fans as long as youre persistent and make a living, hopefully more.

[@seeegol]

Vulfpeck is actually just my favorite band because of their music, but it's cool to see them get more recognition!

[@player0258]

They are smart and got rewarded for it, good content bro keep it up!!

[@Mainyehc]

Pro-tip for people trying to prop their favourite artists: just play your streaming playlist through some headphones, and if you wish to preserve the speaker cones, use analog ones with a volume regulator… Spotify's app can't detect muted volume at the analog level ;)

[@fnamelname8906]

In a perfect world, music is free to consume, while the artists also still get paid. Music is the language of the human soul, everyone should be able to listen, and those who can speak should be able to live a good life

[@snelle_tomos]

You have no idea how money works and think we can just generate money without inflation happening. This is an absolutely dystopian world where your bread will soon cost $20.

[@isthatujeebus]

​@@snelle_tomoshe said in a PERFECT WORLD. Nice reading and comprehension there, bud. 🙄

[@snelle_tomos]

@@isthatujeebus Your perfect world completely avoids the logic of money. It is not a perfect world, it's a dystopia, like I said earlier.

[@isthatujeebus]

@@snelle_tomos are you really this hard of understanding?

[@snelle_tomos]

@@isthatujeebus Only one person with lack of understanding here and it's not me bro

[@K4NE_EXE]

I’m here early asf 😭 Great vid tho the content being get better and better

[@helloyassine]

Thank you!

[@Para.T.]

Very dope info bro. I've been subscribed for a while. Keep it going my guy 💪🏼if you ever wanna check out my music lmk.

[@Parker--]

Best way to support is buy the album and going to the shows and buyng merch, but still stream the music. The CD is over there, but the Spotify playlist is what gets played.

[@0000song0000]

Wow, that's the album that got CORY WONG his own signature Stratocaster model? 😮😮😮

[@gabereiser]

This is the most 1000 IQ play a musician/band can do.

[@MasteringSilence]

Maybe I’ll get this lucky one day, I’ve been trying to master the art of silence for some time now…

[@Seethruthescript]

Love your videos bro, your hustle keeps me motivated 💪🏾

[@pafersip]

Good video, was surprised when I saw "beneath the toxic jungle" at 1:21

[@Welshmanshots]

what I find funny is MCR did this on their black parade album There is a hidden track called Blood that doesn't start until 1 min 35 I have the CD and always thought the last track was bugged or something. wasn't till i ripped to my pc and realised it was an actual song.

[@lukedavies900]

That was done for an entirely different reason, so not really the same thing. Bonus tracks often used to be hidden after some silence after the last song, or by rewinding backwards from the first song, because it wasn't immediately obvious on CDs the same way it is in the digital format where you can see the song length. Plenty of bands have done this.

[@FinlayHamm]

ann arbor made a lot of things -photoshop -domino's pizza -biggest stadium in the country -the cubicle was invented here -first frat house -terry crews, madonna, tom brady, michael phelps, sahsa obama, gerald ford went to university here The city was marked as the best city to live in the entire country in 2023

[@Albinamo]

The royalty system should make the split at each subscriber level. So if ots 10$ a month subscription 3 goes to spotify and then 7 is split evenly between all the streams that account did that month. Omly thing is it could be computationally expensive

[@Falqion]

shout out to vulfpeck been listening to them/not listening to them(sleepify) since 2013. I even played one of their songs for my highschool music final

[@mikabreto]

Don’t sleep on Pooty Tang. In 2001, Pooty was making music that was so cool, if you were unhip your ears wouldn’t even register the dulcet tones. Man, that song still smokes to this day. And it smokes to this day, too.

[@NonEuclideanTacoCannon]

I remember when this went down. Thing that bugs me: they were able to make $20,000 from Spotify off of that one album. Meanwhile, other relatively popular musicians complain about only making like $50 a year off of Spotify. Where is the discrepancy here? Silent scam album or not, why was Vulfpeck actually able to be paid out a significant amount of money in a short time? Is it that for other artists, the label takes all the money?

[@chpn-wh6eo]

Yes, it is. Spotify actually loses money constantly because of how much the labels take. They pay out 70% of the revenue, labels take most of that and musicians get maybe 5-7% of the revenue.

[@carlaucomedy]

Um then how is the CEO a billionaire

[@R3TR0R4V3]

How in the hell do they know what the volume is? That's outrageous and there's certainly ways around it.

[@lejaimdaniel9131]

I truly like your videos, truly informative!!! keep it up

[@DamienLavizzo]

Spotify: "An artist is profiting on the platform we created to convince people we want to help artists profit? Not on our fucking watch..."

[@TendyDefendy]

Artists need to view streaming as a marketing tool, not a primary means of income. For all but the absolute biggest artists, Spotify payout isn't a real source of income, and fans who want to support an artist still want to get something in exchange for their money, not an MP3 file with DRM. Streaming is valuable when it's viewed as a way for people to discover new artists. People who discover artists through streaming become fans, and fans buy merch, physical albums, and concert tickets.

[@djanon22]

This couldn't be more wrong. The record labels love streaming, due to how much it generates. You don't see Russ complaining. Connor Price makes like 250k a month off streaming. .mike also six figures a month. Both independent. I get over 1million streams a month completely passively, about 80% algo plays on Spotify now, and Editorial. Spotify pays out 7billion a year in royalties. Trust me. It's about money lol.

[@lukedavies900]

@@djanon22 I don't entirely agree with OP either but they did say "For all but the absolute biggest artists". Russ and Connor Price are definitely big enough to count as part of that. Most Spotify artists have

[@djanon22]

@@lukedavies900 Part of that issue stems from hobbyists egotistically thinking they are professionals, putting music up with DistroKid, and assuming they'll go viral after a few Adam Ivy videos. I have 150+ artist names and can reproduce success over and over. I didn't learn it anywhere. I just do not agree, as it sounds like bitter artist syndrome when the issue is more so a lack of talent. Out of the 11mill;ion artists on Spotify, 80% of them aren't very good. So I'm not sure about that. Most professionals do pretty well.

[@lukedavies900]

@@djanon22 I don't see how any of this changes the fact that Spotify is a very small income stream relative to stream numbers. You went off on a bit of a tangent.

[@djanon22]

@lukedavies900 It really isn't lol. The only people complaining are the ones who don't get streams. The professionals tend to not complain. Make of that what you will. If I went on a tangent you are blissfully naive.

[@KolMan2000]

Streaming services ultimately disconnect that personal nature of music that the world once had. That connection you felt with a band after buying an album, popping it in, and listening to it front to back to see if you liked any of the songs. Music was an experience that you had been given from that artist. Music has, aside from a minority of people who still purchase music, lost that experience. Now it’s just shuffling through songs you like from random artists to fit a vibe. And while that’s still a great thing to have, albums don’t get appreciated in the way they once were. I encourage anybody who reads this to sit down a listen to an album front to back of an artist they only know two or three songs from. There’s a lot of great experiences to be had in the music most people look past while searching for hit songs.

[@invisi1407]

Honestly, I have never felt _more_ connected with the artists that I enjoy since _after_ streaming services. It's so easy to discover new tracks from the same artist that I've never heard before because I didn't listen to them back when that was released. Let's take Paramore as an example of a band I love, but I hadn't heard their entire discography even 8-10 years into me discovering them but one day Spotify had completed my playlist and continued playing tracks from an album of theirs I hadn't heard before and it literally became my new favorite album of theirs.

[@opt1ss]

Rav at 1:21 in the video just brightens my day!

[@Prod.Sweezy]

2:10 *WHAT DOES THAT LOOK LIKE*

[@sheluvbanz]

Noti gang in da house 🔥💪🏽

[@andreasjoannai6441]

6:51 I recognize that language.

[@waynemiller6070]

I make a pretty good hamburger at home. It doesn't mean I don't buy them occasionally.

[@FireyMario06]

Ain’t Ann Arbor Michigan where tally hall was made

[@carterwatson1949]

love your videos Yassine!!

[@VoyivodaFTW1]

How nice of them to cover Pooty Tang

[@Yukke91]

You sound like the voice of the new ai dj feature in Spotify lol

[@Whitehorse_crimefighter]

This should be called "the band that was more popular when they didnt play music"

[@carlaucomedy]

Ah way poor Spotify who has a billionaire CEO and pays.0004 cents per stream

[@JBerry0129]

vulfpeck is one of my fav bands of all time

[@Bllue02]

Oh I’m absolutely trying something similar to this. Some small noises but overall some silence

[@Cmyth]

I knew this was gonna be about Vulfpeck before I clicked play lol

[@zieniasek8086]

nirvana have literally 12 minute silence between two last songs on the album and nobody is making a wusss about it

[@danielsgrunge]

Wish it was 20 million

[@craigadam]

Water free from the tap. I am paying £40 a month for tap water.

[@TommyWashow]

that john cage joke was worth it

[@KFARR]

I mean people are still coming to Spotify so they shouldn’t care

[@pioneer1131]

its about fuckin time

[@Mayeru]

music should be valued indeed, however, you don't really need to gain 1 million dollars for a song that took you 1 month to produce.

[@Grimeaper]

To be fair given the rules you run into this follows them very well.

[@knotzed]

I fking love this band!!

[@ChaceBonanno]

Can you do a video on Sosa Entertainment and Jake Noch?

[@draw.fresss1341]

Is this why they raised the price 😩

[@arsinclair]

How come Spotify looks bad here? Someone tries to literally rob your company and what are you supposed to do, sit and watch it happen? I'm not saying their business model is good, though.

[@UNOUMI1]

Hot streak!!!!

[@b0rnwithabeard]

it's weird to me that fans care so much about the chart poaitions of people like Beiber

[@atlasdev]

JayZ thinks water is free? What?

[@Riku_michael]

Another great video

[@madeonmobile]

Nice video! Keep it up :-)

[@Sakima205]

They don't pay when the same device plays the song more then once..

[@Zyphon400]

Spotify is on the right!

[@Rahimraissnia]

thank you roddy rich

[@slowdownex]

Justin and that trash song yummy shouldn't have even been up there, versus the box? Versus circles? Two certified bangers? Justin should be happy his crappy song even made it sandwiched between those two. And I'm not just saying this because I hate Justin's music, objectively speaking that track was just not that great.

[@TheBcoolGuy]

I don't see the problem with silent albums. It still engages people in both the band and Spotify itself. If that's what people want to listen to, then why not? I understand the factor of playing it while you sleep, but you'd still be doing that because you're interested in the band. If that's hard on Spotify, that's not the bands' fault.

[@harryjones5260]

are they ok about us sampling it?

[@random.person.9995]

I'm thinking of remixing it. Will be HYPE 😅

[@Frisbieinstein]

Those fake artifacts are so stupid.

[@ApostolosFilms]

🔥🔥🔥

[@coldbumby]

Good stuff

[@joelj7279]

I love vulf

[@stavomusic]

music should be free as a musician this is what i believe and the money sohuld come from sales and performances

[@steel5897]

Music is easily the least respected, least appreciated artform these days. Everyone expects it for free, and everyone listens to random playlists on shuffle, that is if they even listen to full songs at all, as music is now being "enjoyed" in the form of 15-30 second clips on tiktok, that is literally how people are discovering music now. People will pay good money for a movie ticket, they'll go there and watch the movie from beginning to end, but ask them to listen to an album from beginning to end while paying for it and they'll think you're insane. No one really cares about music, really, it's treated as random background noise while you do or watch something else.

[@Tautolonaut]

Why make good music when you can just game the system?

[@KidCracken]

That's light. Some Danish guy botted his way to like a million dollars. Only got busted because he got lazy and uploaded someone else's music.

[@archungus]

This sounds AI generated

[@BlueberryWolf]

I thought the same thing

[@janelaincloudcroft]

spotify robs their users anyways

[@stakkteamofficial1704]

This video is good, but why do you randomly make sentences stereo? Seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, just highlighting things at random

[@Alexanderrayman]

I'm surprised that people think that Spotify was bad for not letting wulfpek game their business model. Let's take it a step further. I'm not in a band, but I want to make money. So I register with Spotify, upload a bunch of silent tracks and have all my friends listen to them 24/7. Still OK? The effects are the same, and in neither case does the ends justify the means.

[@13Omood]

Yes, its still okay. They were working within the rules of the platform so for Spotify to move the goalpost is kind of a shitty move.

[@mr.dirtydan3338]

Is it OKAY that spitify has become an almost billion dollar company from stealing an insufferable amount of money off of their artists? Assuming you say it is okay, why is it suddenly bad when someone does something, completely within the means of the platform to make money?

[@joaoismo]

​@@13Omoodyou're basing your view on laws, not fairness. There isn't any place in the world where people would find it fair to get money exploiting a music app with silent tracks, even if a hole in their terms allowed it. If the only thing you can say to defend this is they allow it, they will simply disallow and leave you with nothing

[@HKT-4300]

Yeah viewing spotify as the bad guy just cause they're the bigger entity doesn't really make sense here, they paid out the money and they said clever move, no more of that please, and that's pretty respectable imo.

[@polocatfan]

​@@joaoismowe SHOULD base things on laws. if the law is bad change it (which it was). you can't promise to pay out someone if they were well within the rules then not do it.

[@MoRzX3]

early

[@meraak1]

took me 2 mins to realize this vid is AI

[@RaisinEnjoyer]

Wait really ?

[@polyman4]

Anything that helps spotify to loose money is great by me.

[@someonesucks7185]

Vulfpeck is a legendary band. They're most popular among elite-level musicians. You know them if you're at least an intermediate-level musician.

[@asdf242]

outro on vollmilch is SO GOOD !

[@oyuyuy]

Clown

[@LokiBeckonswow]

where's the video about how artists that create the value that music streaming models depend on get barely any payment for their work? - it would be nice to see the full picture, maybe then your video title would be less about money being stolen from spotify, and more about people leveraging the process to get back some of the value they've created in the first place..

[@theRayzz]

Must be hard for them to be the one robbed after so many years of stealing artists work 🤷🏻‍♂️ 20k vs 20M 😂

[@seedmole]

Lol instead of just making content people would actually be able to bear listening to for extended periods, they realized it was easier to make money off Spotify by offering nothing at all. Maybe write music that people leave on repeat naturally instead of begging them to game things for you

[@KyrieFortune]

And the fact that putting an album on repeat for seven hours makes the band less than 6 dollars on spotify isn't an issue?

[@Dan16673]

Spotify doesnt money either lol

[@sppl623]

the way you double your voice track for emphasis is terrible wow please stop doing that

[@wildwestpimpstyle]

Cool Israeli band

[@Skinnamarink.]

Who tf is roddy rich? LMAO

[@realTRVGIXXX]

roddy rich held that spot 😂

[@jacked_asian]

jack stratton on top

[@weaponizedestrogen]

this really didnt do anything, if anything it tempted spotify to just get rid of paying for artists altogether lol

[@BrandonCockridge18]

wtf

[@DefaultMale_]

Funny that I clicked on this only because I thought it would be about vulfpeck. Good band