Spotify Teardown is a study of Spotify’s inner workings and provides an academic investigation into streaming music. The research was carried out by 5 Swedish academics to show the inner workings of Spotify that traces the transformation of audio files into the streamed experience. Published by MIT Press on the 19th March 2019, the team of five researchers borrowed the notion of ‘teardown from reverse-engineering processes and disassembled Spotify’s product and the way it is commonly understood.
According to the advance information from the publisher, ‘Spotify Teardown combines interviews, participant observations, and other analyses of Spotify’s ‘front end’ with experimental, covert investigations of its ‘back end.’ The authors engaged in a series of interventions, which include establishing a record label for research purposes, intercepting network traffic with packet sniffers, and web-scraping corporate materials. The authors’ innovative digital methods earned them a stern letter from Spotify accusing them of violating its terms of use; the company later threatened their research funding. Thus, the book itself became an intervention into the ethics and legal frameworks of corporate behaviour.’
Paul D. Miller, aka DJ Spooky in an endorsement of the book said, “We live in a world that has changed beyond all recognition. Spotify Teardown is a powerful book exploring the new dimensions of streaming culture. Think of it as a roadmap to the near future of online media. Streaming has redefined how we consume media, and this excellent investigation into how, and why, we have all changed our media habits is a must-read for anyone who cares about the future of media. It’s that good!”
Spotify Teardown will be available in the UK from the 19th March 2019 and can be bought on Amazon here.
