Swedish criminals said to be using Spotify to launder money

Criminals in Sweden are said to be using cryptocurrency to pay for Spotify streams and clean their dirty money, according to a report. 

Spotify is known as a powerful digital tool for music streaming and entertainment but this is something untoward in terms of what the product is to be used for.

Spotify subscriber revenues

“Spotify has become a bank machine for the gangs” was a bold claim made to the Swedish outlet but Spotify has hit back strongly to defend its reputation.

The music and entertainment platform stressed that “less than 1% of all streams on Spotify have been determined to be artificial”, with a line that any enhanced or illegitimate figures are “promptly mitigated prior to any payouts”. This would suggest that a very thorough, rigorous system is in place to check through large payments.

One million streams are said to return between €3,450 to €5,180, which in itself has caused uproar within the music industry. Is that enough going to the artists whose talent and work are being fully exploited by powerful modern tech like Spotify? Probably not, they deserve a bigger slice of the pie.

The way many people consume music has changed over the years and with everything else, the smartphone is the means by which this product flows and reaches the consumer. That is just a reality of contemporary life.

In line with this, Spotify’s royalty system has recently been criticised for allowing users to cheat the system, instead of aiming more proceeds back to to genuine artists.

The article also included that  JPMorgan executives estimated that 10% per cent of all streams on Spotify are generated by automated listeners, and that subscribers could make €1140 per month, simply by listening to their own song on repeat.

That suggestion was laughed at and shut down by Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify:

“If that were true, my own playlist would just be ‘Daniel’s 30-second Jam’ on repeat!  But seriously, that’s not quite how our royalty system works.”