[Playlists] Prevent automatic takedown of reviewed content

[Nanio]

Problem:

When content is reported for policy violations it is taken down automatically. The user can then write an appeal. Spotify support will check this appeal. If no policy violations have been found, support will allow the user to reupload their content.

This tool get abused by malevolent actors who report the same content over and over again. Each time the content is removed automatically and the user has to go through the same process to recover their content. Again and again. For the same content. As the content has already been reviewed by the Spotify support team once, this process seems neither efficient nor fair.

Solution:

Allow the support team to flag content on a profile or playlist as “Reviewed”. If the same content is now reported again, the content should not be taken down automatically. Instead, the person who reported the incident should get an automatic message that states that the content has been reviewed before and no violations have been found. To protect the rights of copyright holders from mistakes, they can still open a ticket to state their case. This ticket is then reviewed by support and decide if the content should be removed.

Advantages:

• Same level of security for copyright holders
• Less support tickets for Spotify
• Higher user and artist satisfaction

[richbatsford]

Sounds like a simple and sensible solution to a frustrating and long standing problem.  Thanks.

[JonMagnusson]

Sounds like a good solution but I would also wanna see a better system to avoid false reports in the first case.

[Nanio]

Agreed but I could not come up with a good system to prevent the first report. Spotify needs to protect themselves from claims by copyright holders. The automatic removal is an efficient way of doing this. However, from the second report onwards for the same content, the system is not useful anymore and actually creates extra work not only for the user but also for Spotify. 

[Ridcolly]

Thank's for your post.
Your proposed solution seems viable to me.
I hope that this issue will finally be taken care of.

[Ridcolly]

@nanio "Agreed but I could not come up with a good system to prevent the first report."
I See you. But let this be our last problem for now. I am alright with Spotify taking down the image and title of a playlist for a short period of time to check if everything is alright. As long as it happens only once and not every day...

[dallavecchia]

It makes a lot of sense to me

[Mathewjoseph]

It’s high time this vexing issue was addressed by Spotify and this seems like a good solution. 

[raighesfactory]

A great solution for a big problem. Thank you

[stevenleo]

Thank you for your effort. I hope Spotify comes to terms and realizes they became so big because of the help of so many curators & indie musicians.

[michelenobler]

This seems like a perfect solution to this very annoying problem that often also creates damage to both users and artists.

Thanks!