Entertainment 
 
 Some musicians complain about how little money they make from streaming services. Others do something about it. 
 
 Vulfpeck, a small-time funk band with a couple of retro-styled albums under its belt, recently released Sleepify, an album made up of nothing but silence. This isn’t a completely new concept: Anyone with a pompous theory streak will insist that it’s really the silence between the notes that matter—and congratulations if you’re already thinking of John Cage’s 4’33,” a composition performed by sitting there without playing. 
 
 But Vulfpeck’s latest album is a business experiment, not a musical one. The idea behind the project is for fans to stream the “songs” constantly, generating royalties for the band in their spare time. Vulfpeck plans to use the proceeds to go on tour. It’s an ingenious publicity stunt and, if you squint hard enough, a commentary on the way music is valued in the digital age. 
 
 Plus, if you want to get nerdy about it, Sleepify is a clever form of donation by distributed computing. There are precedents here, for both good and evil. Scientists at Stanford have more than a quarter-million people helping them study diseases by running software on their computers; when you get an e-mail suggesting you click on a suspicious link, it’s often really a request to use your computing power to send more spam. 
 
 The 10 tracks on the all-silence album are already the most popular music that Vulfpeck has released on Spotify, with about 1,115,000 plays in total. Spotify pays between 0.6¢ and 0.84¢ per track, according to data released by the company in December, which means Vulfpeck has made somewhere between $6,700 and $9,400. You’re not setting up something like the Watch the Throne tour with this, but it’s nothing to scoff at if what you’re after is gas money and Slim Jims. Jack Stratton, who plays drums and keyboard for Vulfpeck, says he has no idea how much he’s made from Sleepify or, for that matter, what a life on the road costs. “We haven’t toured,” he says. “We’ve only played twice in three years.” 
 
 Stratton isn’t a streaming malcontent. He says that Spotify does a great job of presenting his music to fans and believes that about 10 percent of new fans come to the band through the service. The rest of the people who find Vulfpeck online come from YouTube (GOOG), he says, and “frankly, we make less on YouTube.” The silent tracks have also inspired a big bump in traffic to the band’s actual music. (By my count, the band made about 6¢ from me as I wrote this article.) 
 
 Spotify seems to smile on Vulfpeck’s stunt. A spokesperson, in an e-mail, called it clever, with a caveat: “We prefer Vulpeck’s early albums. Sleepify seems derivative of John Cage’s work.” 
 
 If the band wants to get serious about making digital dollars for not playing, it would do better to stop asking humans not to listen. Bots would be the ideal nonaudience for the nonmusic. Writing programs to drive traffic is already big business in digital advertising, where so-called impression fraud is a widely acknowledged problem. Last year researchers from the firm Broadcast Interactive Media estimated that brands lose $180 million annually paying to advertise to robots, whose sole purpose is to game the system. 
 
 Spotify didn’t want to talk about whether it has ever had to deal with bot-driven traffic. Doing so would probably be possible, although there would be some technical barriers. You’d have to create many accounts and automatically log in using them, since Spotify keeps a single user from listening to more than one track at a time. Any scheme large enough to be very lucrative would also potentially capture the attention of the company. 
 
 Another problem has to do with the way Spotify pays for music. While streaming royalties are often discussed on a per-listen basis, Spotify actually uses a slightly more complicated model. The company pays out about 70 percent of its revenue to labels, artists, and music publishers, and it calculates who gets what by determining what proportion of overall Spotify plays accrued to a given artist. By gaming the system, you end up gaming not only a tech company but also other honest bands just trying to make a buck. And that would be a bummer. ||||| A Los Angeles band figured out a way to make $20,000 from Spotify by doing absolutely nothing. 
 
 The royalties started pouring in after Los Angeles band Vulfpeck wrote Sleepify, a completely silent album, and posted it to Spotify. 
 
 The scheme, intended to fund a tour of free shows, called for fans to stream the silent album through the night as they slept. 
 
 The band's fanbase is small—about 1,000 or so—and Spotify's royalty rate is only $.007 a stream, but the overnight plays began to add up. 
 
 Fans played the album nightly, each generating up to $3 as they slept, according to an interview in Vice. Spotify soon owed Vulfpeck a $20,000 royalty check. 
 
 Eventually the streaming service figured out what was going on. 
 
 "It's a clever stunt but we prefer Vulfpeck's earlier albums," Spotify spokesman Graham James said. "Sleepify seems derivative of John Cage's work." 
 
 Of course Spotify's sense of humor only goes so far—last week they made Vulfpeck remove the album, citing a violation of their terms and conditions. 
 
 UPDATE: As the band points out, they haven't actually received the full check—yet. "My guess is we will," Vulfpeck keyboardist Jack Stratton told Vice. "Spotify pays two months after the listen. So we'll know in May sometime." 
 
 [h/t Paste, image via Getty] ||||| Sonic Innovation #4 - A Band That Tried to Make Money From Spotify Have Been Banned From Spotify 
 
 We’ve tried numerous times to contact Spotify but they’ve issued a “no comment” on every occasion, taking on the strategy of “lets not give this band any attention”. Undeterred, Vulfpeck have uploaded a response track called “#Hurt”; pretty ironic when you consider that they’re still able to make money with a track that criticises the service. 
 
 Since Spotify wouldn't talk, I called up Jack Stratton, the band’s dry witted keyboardist, de facto spokesman, and the dude I spoke to last time, to find out more about the takedown. 
 
 YNTHT: Jack, why do you think they're taking down Sleepify? 
 
 Jack: I think they panicked when they realised someone was actually making money from the music. 
 
 Has the record spawned any copycat albums? 
 
 I haven’t heard of any yet but in the email asking us to take it down, they said they were receiving similar silent submissions. 
 
 With all the attention you’ve been getting, have you had any crazy business offers yet? 
 
 We turned down a $250,000 T-Mobile ad because they never offered it to us in the first place. 
 
 Why make an audio statement? 
 
 I thought it was the best way to get the word out. Spotify has made an effort to highlight new releases through email and notifications, so I thought it would be the best way to reach the fans. 
 
 Have you heard anything more from Spotify after releasing the statement? 
 
 No. I’ve been in touch with their Ombudsman in Los Angeles, and we are going to get a nosh Wednesday. 
 
 Will you still get the money? 
 
 My guess is we will. Spotify pays two months after the listen. So we’ll know in May sometime. 
 
 What are you and the band going to do next if you do get the money? 
 
 If we get the money we’ll go on tour and use Sleepify sales as the tour budget. It will be a different type of tour. We are going to experiment with what a small group of people can do in front of a larger group of people. 
 
 Do you feel like you've made a powerful enemy? 
 
 No. As a user of the service, I’m a fan. I make a joke in the Sleepify video about how Spotify will throw in the history of recorded music if you sign up for Sleepify. As a band though, you have to be practicing yoga and eating grass-fed butter to face the coldness of the free market. 
 
 Thanks Jack!
– Lots of musicians—notably Thom Yorke of Radiohead—hate Spotify because it pays out a tiny fraction of a cent for every track played. But now a funk band out of Ann Arbor called Vulfpeck has come up with what Quartz calls an "ingeniously simple" way to actually make some money off the online streaming service. The group has put out a new album called Sleepify that consists of 10 tracks of absolute silence. Vulfpeck asks fans to stream the album overnight while they sleep, on repeat, figuring it could make about $4 per listener per night. The band promises to use the money for a fall tour in which shows would be free. Guardian music blogger Tim Jonze does some more math and observes that diligent fans could join together to help their favorite groups "make a load of money from this scheme." (Jonze also reviews the album in tongue-in-cheek fashion: "Opening track 'Z' certainly sets the tone, a subtle, intriguing work that teases the listener as to what may come next.") At Businessweek, Joshua Brustein is impressed. "It’s an ingenious publicity stunt and, if you squint hard enough, a commentary on the way music is valued in the digital age." Spotify, meanwhile, seems to be taking it in good spirit, with a spokesperson calling it a "clever stunt." As of now, the company doesn't plan to crack down on the musical silence. (Click to read about how YouTube is planning a service to rival Spotify.)