Apple Music is a great place for listening to official albums. It also turns out that it’s not a bad place to find unauthorized leaked tracks.
According to a new report, a series of leaked tracks belonging to the rapper Playboi Carti have turned up on the streaming music service. They were allegedly uploaded by a person unconnected with the artist.
The leaked tracks include “Butterfly Pill,” “T S**t,” “A and L,” “Hulk,” and “Shortie N Luv.” They were uploaded by a user named DJ EightBit. They reportedly come from Carti’s upcoming album, Whole Lotta Red, set to release this summer.
For fans of Carti, the songs are available to listen now.
Why this matters
Even if you’re not a fan, it’s interesting to see that bootleg songs can make it up onto Apple Music. Given the stringent review process of the App Store, that’s something many might not expect from Apple. (Unless, of course, this is a staged leak — which is a cynical possibility).
According to an article on Genius:
Spotify recently moved to allow indie artists to upload their music directly to the platform, rather than go through services like DistroKid. This was seen as a threat to SoundCloud, which has long been the de facto home for unlicensed and non-professional content. Opening up access to more uploaders, however, has seemed to dramatically increase users’ ability to impersonate and affect the accounts of major artists. Some outlets have speculated whether streaming services will finally crack down as these types of fake-official uploads become more common.”
If this does become “a thing,” it will be interesting to see how Apple responds. Fake apps and bootlegs are very common on the Google Play Store. The App Store, on the other hand, has exerted much more control.
Given the lawsuits Apple Music (and other streaming platforms) have faced over the ownership of certain tracks, what happens next will be intriguing to follow. Not just regarding Playboi Carti, but music more broadly.
