According to a shocking new book, Spotify has been promoting so-called "ghost artists" so it can avoid paying its piddling royalties to real artists.

In an excerpt from "Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist" published in Harper's, author Liz Pelly reveals that the streaming platform has a secretive internal program that prioritizes cheap and generic music.

Dubbed "Perfect Fit Content" or PFC for short, this program not only involved a network of affiliated production firms creating tons of "low-budget stock muzak" for the platform, but also a team of employees who surreptitiously placed tracks from those firms on Spotify's curated playlists.

"In doing so," Pelly wrote, "they are effectively working to grow the percentage of total streams of music that is cheaper for the platform."

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