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What's Spotify's policy on possible plagiarism?

What's Spotify's policy on possible plagiarism?

Does Spotify do any checks to make sure that artists who post music under their name actually are posting THEIR work, and not the work of someone else? 

 

I ask because when I did a search on mashups, one of the albums that came up was 'Easter - EP' by one Alonzo Holt. There's nothing in his pages - either the album info, related artists or biography tabs - to indicate that he's NOT the person performing the songs included on this album, in fact the whole thing is worded to strongly suggest it IS him singing them. 

 

However, when I listened to the first track - 'Let It Go/Let Her Go - Frozen/Passenger Mashup' it was immediately obvious to me that not only was this actually Sam Tsui's version of this track, originally performed by him on YouTube, but that it actually WAS that track, being sung BY Sam Tsui and NOT Alonzo Holt. This is also true of the track 'Pompei,'  'Dark Horse' (this says it features 'Shelton Holt'  - Alonzo'a brother, perhaps? - but the real singer's name is actually Peter Hollens) and the single cover version of 'Stay With Me.'

 

Now either this is Sam Tsui posting some of his work under a pseudonym of Alonzo Holt (and therefore the work of other artists on this same album who AREN'T him) - which seems highly unlikely when you read the biography for Alonzo Holt and compare it to Sam Tsui's on his official page - or this Alonzo Holt has directly copied and pasted Sam Tsui's work into his album and is... let's say, 'allowing people to assume' that it's his own. Which also leads me to question the true origins of all the other songs on these albums of 'his.'  So... what happens now? Does Spotify have some sort of policy in place for this? I'm assuming this Alonzo Holt is getting a financial 'cut' of some sort for each time these tracks are streamed. Which makes what he's doing... somewhat illegal, doesn't it?

 

I don't think I'm wrong about this, but if anyone wants to judge for themselves, here's the link to Alonzo Holt's page, which includes the three songs I've mentioned:

 

spotify:artist:4kvq026WObDtdJlj173ew5 - on Spotify it only says '2014' as a date.

 

And here are some links to the relevant YouTube videos posted by Sam Tsui:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoBELyv9cgk - posted on 4 Feb 2014

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr7ywKs9oIc - posted on 6 Apr 2014

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcbzBQ7L6A0 - posted 21 Feb 2014

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_IFCBEebPs - posted 8 Jun 2014

Reply
2 Replies

Hey @Maerahn thanks very much for your post. 

 

If you believe you've found some works that are not authorized by the copyright owner, please fill out this form so our team can look into this:

 

https://www.spotify.com/legal/infringement-form/

 

Thanks again!

Hi, we can only submit a form if we’re either the owner of the music or their representer. 

I myself know someone who is using someone else’s work on Spotify, whilst publishing it under his name. Since the person whose work has been plagiarized has not been on social media for some time, there is no way to inform them at the moment. 

This is probably the reason why their work was plagiarized in the first place. 

Is is it possible to still report this, without having any relation to the plagiarized person? 

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