Take Ambient Chill, which has 406,000 followers and is grouped with other instrumental playlists as “Focus” music. The first song on the playlist is by composer Max Richter. The second is by an unknown band called Deep Watch, which has two songs on Spotify, each with more than a million streams. The first song on Sleep, a playlist of calming, instrumental tracks with 1.5 million followers, is by Enno Aare, a band with three songs on Spotify and no footprint outside of the streaming service. The band Evolution of the Stars has only two songs on Spotify, but both are on the Deep Focus playlist and they have a combined 15 million streams.

A Spotify spokesperson did not respond to questions about these accusations, which, if true, amount to the company misleading listeners by concocting artists who don’t really exist.