My song got botted without my consent and now I have a strike

[Renegade226]

My song was added to a botted playlist without my consent and the streams spiked into several thousands for a few days. I immediately contacted Spotify to report this and the advisor in chat said "everything seems ok, and there's nothing we can do, we cannot remove private playlists from our service"...then 3 months later Spotify issues a strike against my account for fake streams from that same song I tried to report.

Does anyone else have experience with this? And did they get the wrongful strike removed?

[Jackwurdrup]

So I’ve been waiting for almost 2 months and there’s still no help at all from Spotify. It’s time for us independent artist to do something about it now. There’s a Spotify instagram with 11million followers let’s all go by Friday 26th, 2024 and comment SOMETHING LIKE THIS: SPOTIFY IS GIVING INDEPENDENT ARTISTS STRIKES FOR NO REASON! TAKING DOWN OUR MUSIC FOR NO REASON! STOPPING US FROM OUR DREAMS! WE DONT USE NO BOTS AND WE DONT HAVE CONTROL OF PLAYLISTS THAT USE BOTS ON SPOTIFY!!! PLAYLISTS ON SPOTIFY SHOULD BE PUNISHED GETTING THOSE STRIKES NOT THE ARTISTS!!! PLEASE DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! YOU GUYS ARE TAKING DOWN OUR MUSIC WHEN WE HAVE NO CONTROL OF PLAYLISTS ON SPOTIFY 

[Jackwurdrup]

ON THEIR LAST POST ON FRIDAY 26TH 2024

[sofiagalli]

Hi guys, my whole album was removed as Spotify claimed bots were used for streams. I have never payed for anything as such, I am a small independent musician from Italy with a few thousand streams, and never cheated with AI. They closed the chat without providing information about why they closed my album, no help given. DistroKid claims " It has nothing to do with DistroKid. We are just passing along the information provided to us by Spotify and we haven't been given any additional information from Spotify other than what has already been provided."

Is this even legal? Has someone big spoken about this? Is Spotify even acknowledging the unfairness of the process?

[kostafunk]

Hello my friend

Spotify can claim what ever they want the point is that Spotify have the responsibility to detect bots or Bot playlists and then delete or remove from there platorm ok !!! Even when you buy fake streams and you see on your account that at the beginnig they count and then after a while they get removed i thing that you have pay stupid money for nothing and sure you will stop  to buy then anything !! What spotify now is doing is steahling money from Artist so simple !! Since when private companys send 10$ bucks each track Fines ?? This is 'ILLEGAL' Tthey have the fully right the fake streams to remove and not to pay them!! Yes this  i agree it 100% ~~ But to put your song someone without your permission i a fake botet playlist and instead to take down this playlist you get flagged !! This is ridiculous !!  Keep in mind that now Spotify belongs to Distrokid ok and have cost last year 142 millionn dollars the two third of the shares !! If you understand you understand !! Don't use any outside services they are all fake and even the best campaigns are not real !! Spotify will detect them and you get a strike 100%  !! 

[holidayy]

Guys i migt have not read all the replies until the end but i think its time we all stand as a community and fight this injustice, we gotta agree to one of the two. We televise the injustice through all our social platforms and create tags that other artists around the world facing the same issue can reshare and repost or we can boycott spotify and divert all our power into another streaming service because this bot issue isnt our fault. I understand anyone whos ever Paid for playlisting, Paid a marketing company or paid to get their songs played because in modern times that the only way things work, someone builds a platform from scratch and through their connections and the rest that want exposure through that platform pay a fees and they get the exposure. We as independent upcoming artists already have it super tough competing against labels, Organizations and companies who have their roots in the industry for decades and decades. Flagging and taking down**bleep** because they couldnt create  proper security to handle any bots is their incompetence.**bleep** or on instagram @the_holidayy. They cant do this to us, after saying u must have 1000 plays to get paid now they even hurt us more by blaming us for there security glitch

[kostafunk]

Yes they are doing this now to force you not to buy 1000 streams so they don't get to payed you lol 

[ryanxo]

• Just saw a couple dsys ago I got a little spike in streams on one of my songs and when I checked it out Artister was the maker of the playlist I checked there website out and there just trying to get attention and hoping I wiil buy one of there packages! I ran one of there playlists links in the artist.tools bot checker  and it came back 100% botted. So no way I dont think so Artister!

[Beastboy]

Thank you Spotify or DistroKid for taking down my music after I had the oportunity to put them in "Discovery Mode" (exactly the beats that were doing well in "Discovery Mode"). I never paid for shady promo stuff or something else. This is just a way to screwing artists and making sure that small artists never make it big. Btw. funny that it looks like you detected your own "Discovery Mode" as botting. Five of my songs where in "Discovery Mode" three of them did good numbers compared before Discovery Mode. The three songs which where doing well got deleted.

And same here.. Spotify Support couldn't help me nor DistroKid Support. They punish us for doing wrong even if we didn't, but in this case Spotify and Distributor are doing wrong while they are giving no statement, information or anything else that could help us. At the moment Spotify is penalizing artists even though Spotify are obviously the ones making mistakes.

[Beastboy]

If you are using DistroKid right now, you can simply download all files (Audio & Cover) of your music from DistroKid. But I don't know if this is gonna help you. Since I also heard the same thing happens with other artists who use other distributors. But you could give it a try.

[Beastboy]

**bleep**. The same thing happend to me. Just used the "Discovery Mode" from Spotify itself. I put 5 songs in there and three of them were doing good numbers. Exactly these three song where flagged as artificial streams. Guess the tracking AI works flawless..

[Beastboy]

Did you use the "Discover Mode" from Spotify. I noticed this is also a cause of that issue. I know pretty sensless but this whole situation is a big mess.

[Beastboy]

Same.. It seems like if you use the "Discovery Mode" you will get punished for atrificial streams.. like what..? Looks like Spotify's AI to track artificial streams works flawless...

[kostafunk]

Hi my Friend

i use the Discovery mode since Septermber.This month i have 8 songs there !! and yes before 2 months i get a strike too for a tune that haved the last month 578 streams only but as ii have check out this streams was form 525 different listenrs !! So where the F#$k are the problem Spotify ?? IMaybe Distrokid see that i don't get the money that i have on my acount there and think to catch some of this money send fines !! Spotify this year don't pay anymore songs that have 1000 strams below !! And maybe they will bring a lot of artist to buy 1000 streams and if you get detected you get a fine 10$ !! Yes this business !! Money goes around 🤣 Put your songs on Bandcamp make an advertisement to your fans and you get more !! i have good sellings there better as Youtube and Spotify !! Streaming services are now trendy and are only for big artist that they have millions of streams !!But they are now complaining too for very less money of that !! I think that will come the time that you have to buy the record again !! You upload your songs for the streaming services in very low quality 80 kbs and if someone want it in good quality they have to pay !! So simple !! Streaming Services for average Artist are dead and spotify will die also in 1-2 years !! 

[mawilla]

People have been complaining about the audio quality of Spotify for years, Deezer (or is it Tidal) offers higher resolution but less users. Spotify is too powerful now to fail as it has the market share of users, most of whom don't care about the quality, they're happy with free music (if not subscribed).

[anna-silvers]

I tried to complain to Spotify about these issues, my chat got ended and I was passed from person to person with no resolution. Therefore, I have reported this issue to trading standards UK and have been advised that others do the same, so a case can be built. Spotify have HQ's in multiple locations so everyone should be able to do this, as I am aware others are having the same issues with no resolutions and this is a possible way forward that I am pursuing. Obviously, the more that report this, the more the issue will be highlighted. 

[Renegade226]

Excellent. Yes, we need to escalate this issue to higher authorities - UK Trading Standards, The Better Business Bureau (BBB) in the U.S, maybe even the ACLU. We should also consider crowdfunding for legal counsel if Spotify and the distributors (DK, TC, etc) don't have the integrity to take action on their end.

At a bare minimum, Spotify needs to give artists the option to remove their songs from fake, botted playlists. That would be the simple solution to this rampant problem tarnishing their platform. 

[Legendary7009]

This has happened to me as well. Never paid for playlisting and found myself on a bot playlist. Got my first strike and spent hours arguing with Spotify's customer service only to reach an ambiguous ending that they were going to send it to another department. Nothing since then and it has been months so I guess I just wait until I get my second strike for something I didn't do

[Camhuzar]

I have now had a whole album of mine deleted off of Spotify due to this same issue. I replied months ago to this original thread but despite having gone directly to spotify's contact support service and reporting the spike in streams on one of my songs and speaking with a support person distrokid/ spotify removed my whole project where only one song had this issue. I don't know what to say I actually give up what a sick situation. F you spotify. 

[Renegade226]

If you pay the $10 fine did they restore the album? I thought that was the policy?

[BrandonMcD]

This happenened to me too. A song which was a very personal one about the passing of my grandmother was botted without my consent and knowledge and then removed off the platform. I tried speaking to spotify countless times now explaining the situation, even sending this forum as proof it's an issue facing us smaller artists, and still they have been completely usless. I'm furious. They give no explanation for why they wont do anything about it, give the most vague awnsers, and close the chat convo and dash off, like they are running from the issue. We need to take this to the news asap and put pressure on them to sort it out.