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White Noise Is Hugely Popular on Streaming Services. Should It Be Devalued?

As some streamers downgrade royalties for white noise and nature sounds, a debate has arisen between the value of "noise" vs. traditional musicians.

For years, Spotify’s founder and CEO, Daniel Ek, has aimed to make the streaming service “the world’s number one audio platform.” Between its music, podcast and audiobook offerings, and its formidable market share, it arguably has become just that. 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? According to a Spotify blog post about these rules, “functional genres…[are] sometimes exploited by bad actors who cut their tracks artificially short — with no artistic merit — in order to maximize royalty-bearing streams… The massive growth of the royalty pool has created a revenue opportunity for noise uploaders well beyond their contribution to listeners.”

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