TLDR; some people are creating fake artists with collaborations with real artists to generate revenue
Why I’m sharing, its interesting to know but also from an MBz POV should those who are documenting digital streaming music document these fake profiles?
I have run across a few of these artists.
Some of them have similar-sounding names to make them seem like they’re affiliated with legit record labels when in fact they’re not.
Examples: This artist, this artist and this artist are all named so they will show up when someone searches for Chillhop Music, a popular lo-fi beats label based in the Netherlands. I don’t know that they’re taking advantage of Release Radar in the way that reddit thread describes, but they certainly do clog up search results and may certainly confuse people unfamiliar with the real Chillhop’s logo and content.
And then there are things like this: https://luanhoithiensinh321.bandcamp.com/album/nhu-thuan https://simplfulfillment1.bandcamp.com/album/simpl-fulfillment
The former is obviously infringing copyright, the latter is just some crap.
Ah, when I fist saw the subject line I thought of the fake artists that are on Firefly Entertainment. They seem to have a deal with Spotify to get their “artists” put on Spotify’s official playlists.
What that article describes seems to be a 21st-century equivalent of Muzak.
It’s not unique to Spotify, either. I know of severalApple Musicplaylists comprised of similar content.
I don’t see why we wouldn’t have these on MB, after all the music is ‘real’. It’s more that it’s incredibly bland and then they ‘feature’ a more popular artist - I believe that’s the scam part?
I would definitely remove the ‘feat’ part if it’s fake. Or maybe just add it using the join phrase or credited as options. It shouldn’t incorrectly link to the actual artist.
Having stuff like this in MB is useful imo, it could help someone track/uncover things. Annotations and tags are always good!
