One weird trick gets Spotify to stump up royalties for your favorite band

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Apple raked in the cash last quarter.
Help your favorite artist earn a buck.
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

The Taylor Swift/Apple Music controversy has reignited discussion about what exactly the trend toward music streaming is going to do to artists.

If you’re concerned that your favorite singer isn’t getting enough dough, you may be interested to check out Eternify, a brand new website which lets users play any song they want from Spotify’s catalog in loops lasting 30 seconds — gradually racking up pay-per-stream royalties for the artist or band in question.

“Music streaming’s virtually worthless for artists,” the website reads. “But we can change that.”

As The Verge points out, this isn’t the first time someone has come up with a way of gaming the means by which streaming music services pay musicians. In 2014, the indie funk band Vulfpeck created an album called “Sleepily” composed of silent tracks, which they encouraged fans to listen to on repeat while they slept. The cheeky concept made $20,000 for the group before Spotify wised up.

Eternify is also the creation of a band, named Ohm & Sport, who are trying to raise awareness of the challenges posed by small artists — albeit without the kind of platform a massive artist like Taylor Swift has to get her voice heard.

For the record, a 30-second stream on Spotify earns artists around $0.005, so it will take 100 minutes to even earn $1 for your favorite musician. We guess it’s all in a good cause, though — until Spotify changes the rules that is!

Source: Eternify

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