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Playlists Being Falsely Reported!!!

Playlists Being Falsely Reported!!!

I've been put into an extremely frustrating situation that some of you may have also had problems with. Someone is falsely reporting my playlists, and there's nothing I can do about it. When someone reports your playlist, Spotify will automatically remove the playlist title, playlist bio, and playlist avatar, even if there is nothing that is breaking the rules of the user agreement policy. 

 

I run a rather large Indie/Alternative music blog, and my most recent Spotify playlist quickly gained traction and was starting to build a pretty decent sized following. However, I woke up two days after creating it to find that playlist title was blank and there was no bio. Thinking this was an error or glitch in the system, I changed it back. Not more than 30 minutes later, everything went blank again. After 5 more times of this happening, I contacted Spotify about this issue. They let me know that someone has been reporting my playlist for copyright. Well, I had no playlist picture, I was using the standard Spotify playlist art, the title was "Positive Energy Indie/Alternative Tunes" and there was absolutely nothing that would suggest a copyright issue. To fix this issue and get my playlist back, I had to file a counter-claim, and the user who flagged my playlist will have 10 days to respond. However, even if my playlist gets republished, that same user can report it again and I will be in this same issue all over again. Spotify also told me that it would be extremely hard to pinpoint the user that is falsely reporting my playlist, so there's pretty much nothing I can do about it.

 

As someone that depends on Spotify for my music blog and social media channels, I can not afford to have someone reporting my playlists just for the fun of it, whether that be for better SEO rankings or just because they don't like my channel. I do not wish this problem on anyone, and I think it is an absolutely terribly flawed system that can be abused way too often. There has to be a better reporting system on Spotify's end, or at least some greater protection for users that value Spotify's service and depend on it for their business. 

 

 

 

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131 Replies

same here , how do you speak to Executive Support team? did you get anywhere? why can't the "edited content" be whitelisted after review from spotify - and as long as you dont modify the playlist name/ description - false reporting will not work -

anyway hope we resolve this, its frustrating for sure.

I received 59 reports in 3 three weeks, and still counting to this date. I answered to all notice of report. But it keeps the same. they have, supposedly, banned 2 accounts. I have more than enough of this. It began since I deleted a friends asking profiles in Facebook. He asked to insert music from his producer or similar. After that it's a nightmare.

Hey Hey,

You probably all know me from my old playlists, like Mario, Pokémon and Zelda ... In the meantime I deleted all of them ...

That was because I have been confronted several times by Nintendo, Spotify and other companies.

-
In the Playlist Guidelines, it is stated that you must not infringe any copyright when using images
unless you have official permission.
! However, you can use any name you can think of ... However, a company always has the right to check that we '' the users '' do not just use their name ... They can't be difficult, can they! --- Because my lists were so immensely popular (not like that anymore, I started with a clean slate), it also stands out more ... --- So always pay attention to what you post when it comes to things that are copyrighted and that is literally with everything! haha

Honestly thought I was the only one who was experiencing this. I had one issue of my playlist being reported once before but Spotify solved that issue quickly by blocking that user because they found out he was abusing the report option. But all of a sudden out of nowhere these last 2 weeks roughly I've had my playlist reported over and over again and up to now Spotify says they are aware of the issue and trying to resolve it, but I'm still getting my playlist reported multiple times daily and my emails haven't been responded to by the Spotify support in over a week. 

It is extremely frustrating as creators to have no idea or have any control of this situation and isn't fair at all. Have considered cancelling my account and moving to a different streaming platform

Any idea who is doing it? Who stands to gain? Who has copied the playlist with the same title????

I have a hunch on who is reporting my playlist. I have a semi-large playlist with the same name as some other playlists. In the past couple of months, I've noticed all the big playlists go down due to false reports. Only ONE large playlist hasn't gotten taken down yet and I suspect that is the perpetrator. I just got falsely reported AGAIN this morning.

 

This is incredibly frustrating and I don't understand why Spotify can't just look into who has been making these false reports. I can guarantee you whoever reported my playlist is the same person that has been reporting everyone else with the same title as my playlist.

And honestly, I thought about reporting this guy back out of spite. However, I refuse to stoop down to his level. 

Sigh, this isn't fair...

I hope those jerks get what’s coming to them, I mean it’s clear that the only person to report a playlist is a pirate that has the same playlist name just not as high up on the search.


Yeah it’s kinda obvious who the perpetrator is.. either that or it’s some loser who reports playlists because they have nothing better to do. Rip me bc they’ve started reporting my other playlists as well 😞

Well, quite 1 month and half since it began. About 162 reports I received and I answer all of them. During 1 month it was the same 2 playlists. They stopped, but then it began for another playlist with about 300 followers. The other were about 20000 and 4000 followers. Still, I don't understand why it's so easy to report. I even made 2 reports to check their system. Unbelievable Sportify made that way.
Until it stops, I will continue to answer the reports. 😞

BUMP! I am having this same issue. As soon as I hit 15,000 followers someone reported my playlist. Because my playlist was very niche, it really seems like the report was done by the owner of a very similar playlist. For them it's a great way to shut me out I guess... Spotify, if you are going to automate this process and assume guilt, then you should keep internal records of the folks who are making false reports and remove their ability to do this. Another concept to consider would be a grace period, if you reinstate a playlist (after making sure the claim is false) maybe you don't let it go down again automaatically for some period of time (IE: 30 days)

An update on my "support" case here. After Spotify determined that my content was reported "in error" they informed me that I could repost the content myself if I wish. Not that they restored the content for me in the same way that they removed the content in the first place, and not even an apology for the entire process. It's been a full week now, and I still haven't heard back from my multiple requests for them to assist in reposting the content for me... why? Because I no longer have the playlist image that I originally used over a year ago, so I'm not able to repost it! I also don't remember the description that I had written, which now I need to re-write!

 

Spotify just deleted my stuff and has so far just left me to go and figure it out, ALL FROM A FALSE REPORT. It's infuriating and honestly the worst handling of an issue I've experienced from a company that I mistakenly thought better of. Have you all had similar experiences? Are they requiring you to repost your own content or are they handling these situations differently fro different people? Please share examples of support tickets so that we can get a better collective understanding for Spotify's internal "playbook" on how to handle these issues and hold them accountable. I've posted the response that I've received below:

  

Spotify_support_-_notice_of_your_removal.jpg

Let us know if there's anything else we can do for you. We'd be happy to help.


@Elena - You could start by restoring the image and description of my playlist that was deleted and never restored. I can't post a support ticket case number since I never got one, and honestly I don't even know if my support case is still open. It seems they just told me "you can fix this yourself if you want" and closed it out.

Hi @glencornell7,

 

thanks to the info in your screenshot we were able to double-check your case with the support team.

 

From what we understand the playlist was reinstated and is available here.

 

Restoring the original picture and title is not possible as it apparently includes some copyrighted material that we do not control. However, you should be able to rename it and add a cover at will. Just make sure not to include anything that's copyrighted.

 

As for the description, part of it got auto-removed as well, but the support team states what they can still see is: "lofi beats from [REMOVED] and friends"

 

We hope this helps so you can customize your playlist again.

ElenaModerator
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The playlist has been restored (thank you) but not until after I made a big stink about it.

 

Why wan't a copyright issue ever addressed to me in the support ticket? Based on a number of other similar playlists (and the fact that this was a custom-created image) it doesn't seem like this is something that is strictly policed on Spotify - which honestly makes it feel a lot more like a defensive response to try and point the blame on me.

 

My issue here has all to do with the process for how things are being handled way more that the content of the problem. For me, I've got nothing at stake. But there are a lot of people who depend on Spotify for their livelihoods.

 

I shouldn't have to write a soliloquy on a Community post to get help.

Horrible, getting reported 5 times a day for each playlist (5). This is so unfair and Spotify does not care. At least at a "I'm not a robot" verification as I had to do posting this comment, however for reporting copyright reports you do not have to hahaha. Club of idiots.

That wasn't why it was taken down according to the support ticket. I really shouldn't have to go nuts on a community post to get action. If somebody just told me it was Tom Nook all along that would have made things a lot easier, but I was told this was "inappropriate or offensive content". It feels a lot like "copyright" is being used a reverse reasoning here.

 

By the way, Tom Nook's name is used quite a lot across Spotify, seems like there's a lot of cleanup to do:

tom_nook_examples_in_spotify_playlists.jpg

This has also been happening to me as well. I run a Country playlist with around 7000 followers and unfortunately I have begun to be false reported about twice a day. This is extremely frustrating. Does anyone know when spotify may take some action? 

I’ve been working on my playlist for months and building followers and it has been reported for no reason and now I have no title or description. It’s so stupid that it won’t even allow you to put in a different new name or description even if you wanted to! What am I supposed to do when they don’t reply to email and just let an automated process deal with Spotify trolls? Is there any way I can get my playlist back?

This happened to me this week. I had built a playlist up to 10k followers for classical musicians. We had a good little community going on which has basically been wiped out. 
I think my playlist has been reported 100+ times and I have added back the data each time. I have replied to all emails but yet to get anything back from Spotify to help us out.

 

how long has it taken for people to hear back? I’ve put a lot of time into it and a troll can just end it like that 

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