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In November 2021, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek invested €100 million in Helsing, a company that uses AI to support militaries. [1] Spotify CFO Christian Luiga was the former CFO of Saab, a company that has also invested in Helsing and supplies arms to the IDF. [2]

Spotify has an internal program called Perfect Fit Content, through which employees replace music from real artists on their curated playlists with low-budget slop from anonymous musicians to reduce royalty payouts. Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter revealed that ~20 songwriters were behind the work of more than 500 "artists", and that thousands of their tracks on Spotify had been streamed millions of times. [3]

Spotify has also encouraged artists to enroll their tracks in Discovery Mode, a pay-to-play program wherein musicians and labels receive fewer royalties in exchange for "algorithmic promotion." [4] In 2024, Spotify stopped paying royalties for tracks under 1,000 yearly streams. [5]

[1] "How Spotify Is Quietly Supporting the Military-Industrial Complex", Jennifer Stavros

[2] "Western defence companies scale up production, but Gaza moves goalposts", Robert Wall & Tom Waldwyn

[3] "Ghosts in the Machine", Liz Pelly

[4] "Spotify’s 'Discovery Mode' Being Probed by House Judiciary Committee", Ashley Cullins

[5] "Spotify made £56m profit, but has decided not to pay smaller artists like me", Damon Krukowski