Spotify Busts Indie Band Vulfpeck’s “Sleepify” Scam

The band released a silent album, and waited for the cash to roll in.

Back in March we told you about indie band Vulfpeck, and their hilariously awesome scheme to stick it to Spotify by releasing Sleepify, a silent album that they encouraged fans to stream at bedtime, thereby generating maximum royalties with minimal effort. Vulfpeck then intended to use the eventual payout to play free shows for their fans. Here’s a video that explains it:



Still with us? Good. Well, fast-forward to today, and the band has managed to rack up roughly four million Spotify plays – which translates to upwards of $20K in royalties. The only problem is that Spotify has finally noticed, and they are none too pleased.


“This is a clever stunt, but we prefer Vulpeck’s earlier albums,” said Spotify spokesman Graham James. The company also declared that Sleepify violated their terms of service, and pulled it from the site. No word yet on whether the band will ever see a check from Spotify, but either way, they’ve been mentioned on Maxim.com twice now, so…success!

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