Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel James, and you're listening at seven am.
Speaker 1: Spotify has transformed the way the world listens to music.
Speaker 1: But as it's grown, the company behind it and it's founder,
Speaker 1: Daniel Eck, have been reshaping more than just the music industry.
Speaker 1: Eck has become a key figure in the global defense industry,
Speaker 1: investing hundreds of millions into artificial intelligence based military technology.
Speaker 1: While Spotify itself has a brace to AI, it weighs
Speaker 1: many artists say undermine their work today. Author and journalist
Speaker 1: Liz Paley on how Spotify has pursued for power and profit,
Speaker 1: is changing music, and what listeners can do to take
Speaker 1: back control. It's Friday, July eleven. Liz, thanks for speaking
Speaker 1: with me. Is fan that Daniel Lick has just invested.
Speaker 1: I have a one billion Australian dollars into an ird
Speaker 1: military company. You've been tracking Spotify and Daniel Lick fiez,
Speaker 1: So can you tell me about X history when it
Speaker 1: comes to investments like these?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, Daniel Ck first invested in this company called Helsing,
Speaker 3: which is a AI military tech company, in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: but not only invested in it, he also co authored
Speaker 3: an op ed for Politico, where he was advocating for
Speaker 3: increased investment into AI military technology. This latest tabline, I think,
Speaker 3: you know, it was really interesting to me because not
Speaker 3: only of the dollar amount that was attached to it,
Speaker 3: but you know, they also announced that he'd become the
Speaker 3: chairman of the board of this company, and Daniel Eck
Speaker 3: and Spotify have really become like embedded in the defense industry.
Speaker 3: In addition to Ck, also last year Spotify announced that
Speaker 3: their new CFO with someone who had previously worked at SOB,
Speaker 3: which is another Swedish defense company. So you know, there's
Speaker 3: there's some deeper ties between Spotify and the military industrial complex,
Speaker 3: even beyond just Daniel Ck.
Speaker 1: Daniel k has become very rich off the back of Spotify.
Speaker 1: He's a Brillian name many times, Eva, can you tell
Speaker 1: me about his rise and what he first envisached for
Speaker 1: the platform.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, Daniel X's background before Spotify was in the
Speaker 3: advertising industry. In two thousand and six, he started this
Speaker 3: company with Martin Lawrenson, who also had a background in
Speaker 3: the advertising industry too, and their original idea was for
Speaker 3: a company that would pair advertising revenue with free streaming media.
Speaker 3: It wasn't even necessarily one hundred percent clear that this
Speaker 3: was solely going to be a music company. I do
Speaker 3: think that, Like, you know, over the years, it seems
Speaker 3: like there have been attempts to kind of rebrand the
Speaker 3: co founders of.
Speaker 2: Spotify as music guys.
Speaker 3: You know, if you look back, you can find press
Speaker 3: photos of Daniel lackholding and guitar. There also was an
Speaker 3: attempt to sort of shape this narrative that you know,
Speaker 3: Spotify's goal was to save the music industry.
Speaker 2: So early on, like nineteen ninety nine and naps are
Speaker 2: changed pretty much the whole world for me. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's the internet service that changed my life the most.
Speaker 2: I would say it's but the enfortunate part was obviously
Speaker 2: they didn't pay artists. So really at that point when
Speaker 2: naps are shut down, I started thinking about how can
Speaker 2: you make it better?
Speaker 3: And and you know, Spotify was leveling the playing field
Speaker 3: for independent musicians or contributing to democratizing music and culture.
Speaker 2: You know, these creators are really spectacular individual people who
Speaker 2: want to connect, want to grow, and we want to
Speaker 2: create that platform for them where they can thrive.
Speaker 3: And those are kind of like buzzwords that we heard
Speaker 3: associated for like a lot of tech companies and platforms
Speaker 3: in the mid twenty ten But it was important to
Speaker 3: kind of like interrogate those those ideas a little bit
Speaker 3: and look into, like, you know, okay, what's actually behind
Speaker 3: this company, who's behind it, who serves to benefit from
Speaker 3: the rise of streaming.
Speaker 1: We live in an age of streaming services. Headed Spotify
Speaker 1: become the biggest music streaming service in the world, Can
Speaker 1: you talk me through the business decisions that led to
Speaker 1: that happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question, because you know, they weren't
Speaker 3: necessarily the first. But one of the things that is
Speaker 3: unique about Spotify is a rise of the Spotify playlist
Speaker 3: as a cultural phenomenon and the strategic thinking that informed
Speaker 3: the prioritization of a playlist as a way of growing
Speaker 3: their subscriber base. Twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen was this
Speaker 3: sort of time where the Spotify playlist playlists made by
Speaker 3: in house editors, had this really kind of unique cultural
Speaker 3: ate over how people discovered music, and just in the
Speaker 3: music industry, was considered like a really important part of
Speaker 3: the promotion process for a new record, for example. So
Speaker 3: artists were being convinced that these editorial playlists were going
Speaker 3: to be an important part of how they connected with
Speaker 3: and sort of gained new fans in some ways. Around
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, you started to see headlines in
Speaker 3: the music business press claiming that Spotify was filling its
Speaker 3: playlists with music by artists who didn't exist, with fake
Speaker 3: artists in order to pay out fewer royalties. You know,
Speaker 3: the public had been calling me as fake artists. There
Speaker 3: actually was an internal term at Spotify perfect fit content,
Speaker 3: which is this phrase that they used to describe music
Speaker 3: commissions to fit certain moods and playlists with improved margins.
Speaker 3: So it's clearly a cost saving initiative in order to
Speaker 3: kind of squeeze value in some ways out of listeners,
Speaker 3: but also musicians. There are so many different ways in
Speaker 3: which processes of algorithmic recommendation and automated decision making have
Speaker 3: shaped not just the sound of music, not just the
Speaker 3: type of music, not just the reality of generative AI
Speaker 3: music on these platforms, but shapes the way people think
Speaker 3: about meaning in music and the way music is contextualized
Speaker 3: and recommended. Spotify and other streaming services allow generative AI
Speaker 3: content onto their platforms, and the generative a question, you
Speaker 3: know only continues to be more urgent, and it says
Speaker 3: a lot I think about the reality that you know,
Speaker 3: not just Daniel Ck, but a lot of people who
Speaker 3: end up in positions of power in the music industry
Speaker 3: like aren't super.
Speaker 2: Interested in music.
Speaker 3: They're interested in growing their wealth. So yeah, definitely not music, guys.
Speaker 1: After the break, it's your new favorite middle of the
Speaker 1: road old country band. Even real.
Speaker 4: List.
Speaker 1: We know Spotify uses AI to keep you listening on
Speaker 1: their platform, so what do we know about their plans
Speaker 1: for using Generative II further.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's hard to like speculate about what they
Speaker 3: might do when it comes to generative AM music on
Speaker 3: the platform. But you know, what we do know is
Speaker 3: that there's like tens of thousands of Generative AI tracks
Speaker 3: being uploaded to streaming services every day, and there's been this,
Speaker 3: you know, story of this viral generative AI band called
Speaker 3: the Velvet Sundown.
Speaker 4: If you've been on Spotify recently, you might have seen
Speaker 4: a band called the Velvet Sundown on your feed. Now,
Speaker 4: at first glance, it seems like any other indie rock group,
Speaker 4: but none of their members actually exist. The Velvet Sundown
Speaker 4: has now amassed almost one million monthly listeners, with songs
Speaker 4: including Dust on the Wind and End the Pain among
Speaker 4: their top hits. Take a Listenstrom, you know, one.
Speaker 3: Of the big threats of generative AI material is the
Speaker 3: way in which it could potentially undercut the creative labor
Speaker 3: of artists and users should be able to make informed
Speaker 3: decisions about what they're listening to. And you could say, well,
Speaker 3: you know, people should listen more closely or do their
Speaker 3: own research. But I think that if the technology is
Speaker 3: there to label this material, it should be labeled because
Speaker 3: there are so many different concerns that people in the
Speaker 3: artist community have about generative AI, about their music as
Speaker 3: being users training data, how it will be credited, how
Speaker 3: they'll be compensated, how compensation might be driven down by
Speaker 3: the existence of generative AI music on these huming platforms.
Speaker 5: More than a thousand musicians are releasing a silent album
Speaker 5: to campaign against the British government's plans to change copyright laws,
Speaker 5: which could allow tech funds to train artificial intelligence models
Speaker 5: using real performers' voices. Artists including Annie Lennox, Kate Bush,
Speaker 5: and Andrew Lloyd Webber back the campaign. They say the
Speaker 5: changes would rev us.
Speaker 3: Right now what we're seeing is a lot of the
Speaker 3: discourse that has sort of played out around generative AI
Speaker 3: music has been around deep fakes.
Speaker 4: I.
Speaker 6: At first, it's quite convincing. Creator ghost writer nine seven
Speaker 6: seven claims the song is AI generated, artificial or not.
Speaker 6: It quickly generated real numbers over six hundred thousand streams
Speaker 6: on Spotify before Drake's label had it pulled, and that's important.
Speaker 3: It's important that you know if someone's likeness is being used,
Speaker 3: that they have the ability to get that work removed.
Speaker 3: But in reality, like the types of artists that are
Speaker 3: going to have the legal muscle to actually be able
Speaker 3: to do anything about that are pop stars, people who
Speaker 3: have really big legal teams behind them. There's also all
Speaker 3: sorts of ways in which generative AI undercuts the labor
Speaker 3: of indie artists and DIY artists and smaller artists who
Speaker 3: might not have the same name recognition or legal team
Speaker 3: behind them to be able to take action against situations
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Sorry for the myriad of reasons, many of which we've
Speaker 1: touched upon, people have deact divided this Spotify accounts honest
Speaker 1: to form their music from Spotify. But the lightest Ioli
Speaker 1: military investment was the last strual for many people. What
Speaker 1: does that tell you?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think that because the economic model
Speaker 3: is the same across the board for most streaming services,
Speaker 3: I think people are going to start looking into these
Speaker 3: other things like, well, does this streaming service have ties
Speaker 3: to the military industrial complex? Does the streaming service use
Speaker 3: generative AI music and not label it? I'm not someone
Speaker 3: who is really in the business of like putting the
Speaker 3: streaming services side by side and saying, well, this one
Speaker 3: pays a few penny fractions more than this one, so like,
Speaker 3: so you should be subscribed? Here was there? Like, I
Speaker 3: don't really like playing the role of consumer guide because
Speaker 3: the vast majority of streaming services operate under the same
Speaker 3: Proorada model that is really, I think an unfair model,
Speaker 3: you know. I'm I think that a better way of
Speaker 3: doing streaming economics to be something called user centric, which
Speaker 3: is basically like I pay ten dollars to a streaming service,
Speaker 3: they take their thirty percent cut, the remaining money goes
Speaker 3: to the artists I stream.
Speaker 1: And finally, is what would you say to people who
Speaker 1: are stocking the convenience of using Spotify or rather streaming services?
Speaker 1: How did I break free?
Speaker 3: Well, if as a music fan, you are concerned with
Speaker 3: making sure that the money that you spend on music
Speaker 3: doesn't accidentally end up in the military industrial complex, doesn't
Speaker 3: accidentally end up going to a generative AI band. Your
Speaker 3: best bet would be buying music directly from from the artists,
Speaker 3: whether it's through band camp or through their website, or
Speaker 3: through their record label, or through supporting an independent record store. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 3: the combination of buying music directly plus listening to independent
Speaker 3: community radio, for me, is kind of like a winning combination. Like,
Speaker 3: I understand that music is vast. People listen to music
Speaker 3: for different reasons, and people engage with music for different reasons.
Speaker 3: So I don't expect every single person who really cares
Speaker 3: about music to start building an MP three library again
Speaker 3: and to buy an FM radio, even though those are
Speaker 3: the things that I would.
Speaker 1: Totally suggest me too.
Speaker 3: I do think though, that like that's kind of like
Speaker 3: our best bet in this moment, remembering that it's never
Speaker 3: been super convenient to be a fan of independent music,
Speaker 3: and that you know, being our participant in independent music
Speaker 3: culture like does require a little bit of friction in
Speaker 3: many ways.
Speaker 1: It's the inconvenience that Mike's are cool. Lise thanks so
Speaker 1: much for speaking with this.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Liz Pally's book is called Mood Machine, The Rise of
Speaker 1: Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist. She'll be
Speaker 1: speaking in Melbourne at the Wheelers Cinda on Thursday, twenty
Speaker 1: ninth of August. Also in the news, anti Semitism in
Speaker 1: Australia has reached deeply traveling levels, according to Anthony Albanesi.
Speaker 1: The Prime Minister yesterday launched a report by Australia's Special
Speaker 1: Envoid to combat anti Semitism, Gillian Siegel, which recommended sweeping
Speaker 1: changes across universities, the media, policing and migration. Miss Siagal's
Speaker 1: report recommends the government withhold funding from universities who failed
Speaker 1: to stamp out anti Semitism, along with encouraging public broadcasters
Speaker 1: to accurately and positively represent Jewish history and culture. It
Speaker 1: also calls on the government to screen visa applicants for antisemitism.
Speaker 1: The recommendations will now be considered by government and the
Speaker 1: United Nations. Special raponteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories has
Speaker 1: been sanctioned by the Trump administration. Francesca Albanesi is a
Speaker 1: human rights lawyer and independent expert appointed to report to
Speaker 1: the UN on human rights issues. She has been outspoken
Speaker 1: on allegations of war crimes in Gaza. When announcing the sanctions,
Speaker 1: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Miss Alberanezi of
Speaker 1: unabashed anti Semitism and said she has expressed support for
Speaker 1: terrorism and open contempt of the United States, Israel, and
Speaker 1: the West. Seven Am was a daily show for Solstice Media.
Speaker 1: It's made by Adigus Bastow, Shane Anderson, Chris Danegate, Ruby Jones,
Speaker 1: Sarah mcvee, Travis Evans, Zoltenfet Joe and Me, Daniel James.
Speaker 1: Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan
Speaker 1: of Envelope Boudier. Thanks for listening and have a great weekend.