Starting from February 1 2024, Spotify will increase the minimum track length of functional noise recordings to two minutes, in order to be eligible to generate royalties. Functional genres will include white noise, nature sounds, machine noises, sound effects, non-spoken ASMR, and silence recordings. By setting a minimum track length, these tracks will make a fraction of what they were previously earning, freeing up that extra money to go back into the royalty pool for honest hard working artists. It also creates a more fair playing field for artists in these functional genres, by eliminating the perverse incentive to cut tracks artificially short with no artistic merit, at the expense of listener experience.
- Find more information on November 2023 announcement