The Ghosts in the Machine, by Liz Pelly
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Spotify’s plot against musicians
January 2025 Issue [Report] The Ghosts in the Machine Adjust Share Spotify’s plot against musicians by Liz Pelly , Illustrations by Yoshi Sodeoka Listen to an audio version of this article. I first heard about ghost artists in the summer of 2017. At the time, I was new to the music-streaming beat. I had been researching the influence of major labels on Spotify playlists since the previous year, and my first report had just been published. Within a few days, the owner of an independent record label in New York dropped me a line to let me know about a mysterious phenomenon that was “in the air”&
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