Spotify's podcasting problem: loophole allows remixes and unreleased songs to hide in plain sight

Using simple keywords and terms like ‘chopped and screwed’, ‘slowed and reverbed’, ‘remix’, and ‘mashup’ in Spotify's search bar, users can track down bootlegged reworks of songs by many top artists which live on Spotify's podcast hub. — AFP

LOS ANGELES: Spotify has joined the ranks of streaming services like SoundCloud and YouTube as a hub for bootlegs of popular songs. With obscured titles like “Jocelyn Flores but you're in the bathroom at a party by eraylandin”, a new take on XXXTentacion's popular Jocelyn Flores, and “Dead To Me – Kali Uchis (slowed + bass boosted)” by user Unreal sounds, a rework of Uchis' popular track from her 2018 album Isolation, these underground remixers have chosen to upload their creations as podcast episodes, hoping to circumvent copyright infringement detection by the platform.

Using simple keywords and terms like "chopped and screwed", "slowed and reverbed", “remix", and "mashup" in Spotify's search bar, users can track down bootlegged reworks of songs by many top artists which live on Spotify's podcast hub. Late rapper Juice WRLD, who still commands a cult following, has a full “podcast series” dedicated to revealing his unreleased songs, like user No Si's podcast titled, "Instagram @xricardol.tx”. The podcast contains “episodes” like "Sugarfish (Leaked)”, a song Juice WRLD wrote with The Chainsmokers that was never officially released, despite online rumours that the collaboration would become available in December 2019. These podcasts, like "Instagram @xricardol.tx”, only contain the audio of specific songs and almost always list the tracks as individual episodes. There is nothing that resembles the typical characteristics of a podcast.