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By John McCarthy | Opinion Editor

July 25, 2014 | 2 min read

Crafty US band Vulfpeck has earned $20,000 in royalties from Spotify after releasing ‘Sleepify’, an inaudible album featuring ten half-minute songs of absolute silence.

The funk band released a YouTube video encouraging fans to listen to the silent tracks on Spotify, even when they slept, to bankroll a tour of free shows.

According to a royalty statement shown to Billboard, the album received 5.5m plays each worth around $0.0030 to $0.0038. Each track was just above the 30-second minimum length.

‘Sleepify’ was taken down after seven weeks for unspecified reasons although a Spotify spokesman did call it “a clever stunt”.

On the artistic front, the band joked about how the album should be listened to with fans on Twitter.

They also feigned sadness when they found out people were pirating their album on torrent websites.

The band issued the following statement regarding the piracy of ‘Sleepify’: “We are aware Sleepify has appeared on a few torrent sites and a MegaUpload link is floating around.

“I assure you, our top priority as artists is for our music to be heard, but it's extremely frustrating after spending months in a studio for no reason at all, people feel no guilt stealing this music.”

This comes after the Swedish music streamer made agreements with major brands to provide video ads to increase revenue, last month.

Vulfpeck will tour Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and its hometown of Ann Arbor, Michigan with the proceedings.

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