heptapod - Slashdot User

Submission + - Spotify's Ghost Artists (harpers.org)

Submitted by heptapod on Friday December 20, 2024 @09:56AM

heptapod writes: Rather than paying royalties, Spotify allegedly uses stock music companies to create their own filler music for playlists.

"Linus Larsson, showed me the Spotify page of an artist called Ekfat. Since 2019, a handful of tracks had been released under this moniker, mostly via the stock-music company Firefly Entertainment, and appeared on official Spotify playlists like âoeLo-Fi Houseâ and âoeChill Instrumental Beats.â One of the tracks had more than three million streams; at the time of this writing, the number has surpassed four million. Larsson was amused by the elaborate artist bio, which he read aloud. It described Ekfat as a classically trained Icelandic beat maker who graduated from the âoeReykjavik music conservatory,â joined the âoelegendary Smekkleysa Lo-Fi Rockers crewâ in 2017, and released music only on limited-edition cassettes until 2019. âoeCompletely made up,â Larsson said. âoeThis is probably the most absurd example, because they really tried to make him into the coolest music producer that you can find.â

The Ghost In The Machine

Submission + - 10KY Clock Project Moves Forward with Bezos (wired.com)

Submitted by heptapod on Saturday June 25, 2011 @10:04AM

heptapod writes: Wired has an in-depth article about the 10,000 Year Clock and The Long Now Foundation which has begun moving forward with Bezos's investment of $42 million. Recently he put up a website with more information.

Submission + - Team Fortress 2 Free Forever (develop-online.net)

Submitted by heptapod on Thursday June 23, 2011 @08:08PM

heptapod writes: Valve has announced that Team Fortress 2 is now free to play “We've been toying with the idea of making Team Fortress free-to-play ever since the Mann-conomy update [in September 2010],” Walker said. Walker assured that Team Fortress 2 would only be monetised by microtransaction payments.

Submission + - Supreme Court rules on Corporate Privacy (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by heptapod on Wednesday March 02, 2011 @09:43AM

heptapod writes: The Supreme Court unanimously decided (PDF) Monday that AT&T can't keep embarrassing corporate information that it submits to the government out of public view; “personal privacy” rights do not apply to corporations. “We trust that AT&T will not take it personally” concluded the ruling.

Submission + - Google wants to take away your capslock key

Submitted by

heptapod

on Wednesday December 08, 2010 @08:25AM

heptapod writes: "Slashdot reported earlier about Google's Chrome notebook and keen-eyed readers would have noticed the lack of a caps lock key. "According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments, because people will not be able to write all in capital letters. I'm not a fan of the caps lock key myself. I never use it, so it can go to hell, for all I'm concerned. But taking away choice from people is not good, especially when this is not going to improve the quality of comments.""

Submission + - Stolen Kindle? Amazon won't help you find the thie

Submitted by

heptapod

on Friday September 11, 2009 @11:05AM

heptapod writes: "According to the New York Times, a Kindle customer has discovered the hard truth of capitalism, "Amazon knew the device was being used and preferred to sell content to anyone who possessed the device, rather than assist in returning it to its rightful owner." It seems that crime does indeed pay. Quite funny in light of the fact that Amazon finds protecting copyright more important than helping their customers."

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