{"id":147461,"date":"2025-04-03T18:09:56","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T22:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/04\/03\/white-noise-is-hugely-popular-on-streaming-services-should-it-be-devalued\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T18:09:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T22:09:56","slug":"white-noise-is-hugely-popular-on-streaming-services-should-it-be-devalued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/2025\/04\/03\/white-noise-is-hugely-popular-on-streaming-services-should-it-be-devalued\/","title":{"rendered":"White Noise Is Hugely Popular on Streaming Services. Should It Be\u00a0Devalued?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\tFor years, Spotify\u2019s founder and CEO, Daniel Ek<\/strong>, has aimed to make the streaming service \u201cthe world\u2019s number one audio platform.\u201d Between its music, podcast and audiobook offerings, and its formidable market share, it arguably has become just that.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tGenre Report: Can the Ambient Music Boom Withstand\u00a0AI?\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tBut there\u2019s one form of audio that the service is less excited about: noise. Also referred to as \u201cnon-artist noise content,\u201d \u201cnon-music,\u201d \u201cfunctional music\u201d (a commonly used term that some disagree with), and more by Spotify and music industry skeptics, these tracks capture sounds like wind, bird calls and white noise, and have become popular for listeners to stream, often for hours on end, while they sleep, focus, relax or meditate.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs streaming services become increasingly interested in changing their royalty models<\/a>, these noise tracks have provoked debate between those who believe the content has value and those who feel it takes away from traditional musicians. And as Spotify and Deezer lead the charge, creating new policies that lower the money-making potential of noise, could penalizing this form of audio free up new money for musicians and help curb artificial streaming?<\/p>\n

\n\tIn early 2023, Lucian Grainge<\/strong>, chairman\/CEO of Universal Music Group, drew attention to the topic when he began to speak out against noise tracks regularly. \u201cOur industry is entering a new chapter where we\u2019re going to have to pick sides, all of us are going to have to pick sides,\u201d he said at Billboard\u2019s<\/em> Power 100 event<\/a> that February. \u201cAre we on the side of\u2026functional music, functional content? Or are we on the side of artistry and artists?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThose who work in the noise space, however, don\u2019t see the debate as that black and white. \u201cI hate that stance,\u201d says Jordan Smith<\/strong>, co-founder of Arden Records, a label which puts out lo-fi, ambient and field recordings. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of nature stuff, including a project with the National Parks, where we\u2019ve released nature sounds. Our artists will go on a hike and field record it. They\u2019ve spent time, effort and energy into that. They shouldn\u2019t be penalized because it\u2019s a different way of listening.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tSpotify Is Changing How It Pays\u00a0Artists\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tSome have even dedicated their life to this work. Birmingham, England-born Martyn Smith<\/strong>, for example, has recorded and released 30,000 hours of nature sounds<\/a>, dating back to the mid 1960s, to streaming services. Smith and his team see it as a method of environmental conservation, given that so many of these habitats were destroyed or permanently altered after Smith recorded them. \u201cWhen you get to dip your toe into a different world and see people who are committing so much time and energy to [these field recordings], it\u2019s genuinely awe-inspiring,\u201d Smith\u2019s collaborator, Robert Shields<\/strong>, told Billboard<\/em><\/a> previously.<\/p>\n

\n\tOthers don\u2019t have such lofty, artistic goals with noise tracks. One music industry professional, who spoke to Billboard<\/em> under the condition of anonymity, puts out white noise to make money on the side while working a traditional music job. While they admit they\u2019ve been exploiting the streaming model, ultimately, they say, \u201cWho am I to say what audio is valuable to a Spotify user and what isn\u2019t? Maybe white noise is the only way that person can fall asleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGrainge and others, like Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl<\/strong>, see this form of content not as a value add or an artistic endeavor but as a way of siphoning money away from their businesses. \u201cIt can\u2019t be that an Ed Sheeran<\/a> stream is worth exactly the same as a stream of rain falling on the roof,\u201d Kyncl told investors<\/a> in 2023. The noise issue has become one of the points of attack in Grainge\u2019s \u201cStreaming 2.0\u201d plan, which aims to revise streaming royalty models to unlock more money for \u201cprofessional artists\u201d \u2014 like the ones signed to major label groups. Along with downgrading the value of noise, it also includes other suggestions, like implementing a threshold of minimum streams to qualify for monetization and penalizing fraudulent activity.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tEverything to Know About Spotify\u2019s New Royalties Model: How Does It Work & Who Will\u2026\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tAs the CEO of the largest music company in the business, Grainge has gotten his plan implemented at multiple services already, including Spotify and Deezer. While streamers are largely neutral about where they send appropriate royalty payments, as long as it abides by their guidelines, it matters much more to label bosses, who depend on the growing size and proper allocation of the royalty pool.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s hard to gauge exactly how much money has been paid out to noise content creators over the years, but its popularity is undeniable. On Apple Music, the playlist \u201cRain Sounds\u201d is its third most popular offering. In a quick glance on Spotify, one of many tracks featured on its \u201cWhite Noise 10 Hour\u201d playlist has 226 million Spotify streams and counting.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo combat the amount of money flowing toward this content, Deezer has elected to remove user-uploaded noise content altogether from its service, instead offering company-owned, company-made noise offerings that do not generate royalties. Spotify took a different approach. While it has allowed outside noise tracks to stay on the service, it downgraded royalty-earning potential by 80% in late 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccording to a Spotify blog post about these rules, \u201cfunctional genres\u2026[are] sometimes exploited by bad actors who cut their tracks artificially short \u2014 with no artistic merit \u2014 in order to maximize royalty-bearing streams\u2026 The massive growth of the royalty pool has created a revenue opportunity for noise uploaders well beyond their contribution to listeners.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tSpotify Plans to Pay 80% Less for Rain Sounds and White\u00a0Noise\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tWhile many publicly celebrated these changes, others quietly worried about it. For David Green<\/strong>, founder\/CEO of Ameritz, an instrumental record label that has also released field recordings, \u201cWhen [Spotify\u2019s new rules around noise] were announced last year, there was a bit of fear across all providers. I think it was across the board. You\u2019d be surprised how many providers do this type of [noise content].\u201d Like the anonymous industry professional, many who dabble in noise recordings do it to earn additional income on the side of more traditional music industry work. \u201cThen there was the fear of, \u2018Maybe this detection won\u2019t be as accurate as it should be,\u2019\u201d says Green, and it could accidentally pick up music too, especially more experimental ambient works.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor decades, musicians on the cutting edge have experimented with the sometimes-blurry line between music and noise. Musique Concr\u00e8te, for example, is an experimental form of music that dates back to the 1940s and uses a compilation of raw, found audio to create a sound collage. Ambient musician TJ Dumser<\/strong>, who releases under the moniker Six Missing, says he doesn\u2019t like the idea of people playing the system with white noise, but adds, \u201cI think the only concern for me is, \u2018Where is the line? How do we draw the line from noise, ambient and even noise rock? Who is to say what\u2019s not music to somebody else?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut one year in, Green says Spotify\u2019s tool seems to be accurate at drawing that line between noise and music. Spotify confirmed to Billboard<\/em> that to monitor and filter noise tracks effectively it uses Sonalytic, an audio detection technology it acquired in 2022 that can identify songs, mixed content and audio clips, as well as track copyright-protected material. A Deezer spokesperson confirmed that it has an \u201calgorithm that has been specifically trained to detect non-music noise tracks,\u201d but that the company also can manually whitelist tracks that could be detected as noise but actually are experimental music.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tDeezer CEO Explains How New UMG-Backed Streaming Royalties Model\u00a0Works\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3><\/div>\n

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\n\tWhile this battle over noise content hit a fever pitch in 2023, determining the value of alternative forms of audio has been a much longer-running challenge for streaming services. In 2014, independent funk band Vulfpeck released Sleepify<\/em><\/a>, a silent album, to Spotify. The band\u2019s frontman, Jack Stratton<\/strong>, then asked fans to stream the 10-track album on repeat overnight while sleeping to fund the band\u2019s upcoming tour. After the project earned an estimated $20,000, Spotify removed the project, saying it violated its terms of content.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe hope is that, over time, these increasingly stringent policies against silent and noise tracks will put more money into musicians\u2019 pockets. Spotify estimates that its new streaming policies, including but not limited to royalty reductions for noise, will lead to an increase of $1 billion available to artists in its royalty pool over the next five years. <\/p>\n

\n\tWhen asked for comment about whether or not these policies had their desired effects yet, just over one year in, both Spotify and Deezer have positive, but mixed, results. A Spotify spokesperson said these rules have decreased Spotify\u2019s issues with spam and artificial streaming from noise and decreased the number of short noise tracks. A representative for Deezer says, \u201cThe level of fraud, at least in terms of number of attempts, is not directly connected to our catalog cleaning efforts. However, we have seen that fraud has decreased on Deezer between 2023 and 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Aller \u00e0 la source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, Spotify\u2019s founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, has aimed to make the streaming service \u201cthe world\u2019s number one audio platform.\u201d Between its music, podcast and audiobook offerings, and its formidable market share, it arguably has become just that. Related Genre Report: Can the Ambient Music Boom Withstand\u00a0AI? 03\/12\/2025 But there\u2019s one form of audio […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musique","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cyberlego.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}