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[Playlists] Solution to false/abusive reporting

Submitted by on ‎2020-04-13 03:33 PM
Status: Live Idea

Whenever someone reports a playlist - the title and cover art are removed immediately. This is often abused to hurt record labels and playlist curators. After contacting support - the account of someone who abused this system gets taken down. This person then creates another email and free Spotify account and repeats the process. 

 

There is a simple solution to the problem - enable reporting feature only after 10 hours of music/podcasts were streamed using the account. It won't change the experience for a normal user but makes copyright abuse impractical. It's cheap and easy to implement and would stop 95% of false claims.

 

Thank you for your consideration. 

Updated on 2021-06-14

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Comments
infiniteembers
Casual Listener
2020-11-30 11:24 PM

Hi @russrichards, no, I haven't gotten any help from Spotify on this matter yet. I am in daily contact with them via Twitter @SpotifyCares but haven't found anyone who wants to help, I highly recommend reaching out to them there. If enough voices are heard hopefully they'll act.

Nanio
Casual Listener
2020-12-02 03:25 PM

Can confirm the problem! Have been targeted myself several times in the last weeks and know lots of other curators who face the same problem.

 

There is also a Twitter conversation going on with Mike Warner:

https://mobile.twitter.com/AndySalvanos/status/1333292954916536320

homebrewprod
Casual Listener
2020-12-02 06:38 PM

So the problem here is the reverse jurestriction I´ve never seen anywhere else: guilty till otherwise proven not guilty. If you get a complaint, leave the content up til its been checked! Whenever I have a takedown it only takes a day anyway till someone comes back that its OK anyway.

Nanio
Casual Listener
2020-12-03 11:57 AM

Well, the problem is that Spotify is in a bit of a pinch here. If they don't remove the content right away, there is a risk they get suit by copyright holders. This is also why I am not sure that they can go through with this solution. It would prevent copyright holders from reporting a violation right away.

 

To remedy this, I've drafted an alternative solution for the same problem:

https://community.spotify.com/t5/Idea-Submissions/Playlists-Prevent-automatic-takedown-of-reviewed-c...

homebrewprod
Casual Listener
2020-12-03 12:40 PM

Hi Nanio

 

Spotify will always be able to take down content that has been reported "within reasonable time" - which is more than enough in terms for possible lawsuits. If they can document that they look through and evaluate all complaints within a day or so - that should work fine in most court-rooms. This way the number of reports will fall drastically also. 

 

AND judging from the speed they clear content that is taken down, they should have no problems doing it this way. 

 

 

Nanio
Casual Listener
2020-12-03 01:30 PM

That's a good observation! In any case, I will support both ideas going forward.

Nanio
Casual Listener
2020-12-04 11:51 AM

The solution I proposed for the problem has been marked as duplicate. As I still feel that it is a very different solution, I'll leave it here, just in case:

 

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
russrichards
Music Fan
2020-12-04 01:20 PM
Makes sense. Something needs to be done
jypark01
Newbie
2020-12-07 06:17 AM

Within the past 72 hours, my playlist has been reported 2000+ times already. I've been getting at least 1 email EVERY MINUTE. I'm pretty sure they're using bots to continuously report my playlist 24/7... I've contacted spotify via email, chat and twitter but they've been utterly useless. Spotify are aware of this situation but they're not doing anything about it...

kamdiba
Newbie
2020-12-09 08:02 PM

I also curate a playlist with about 250k fans and have been dealing with this for 2 years. Spotify doesn't care to fix the problem because they have no vested interest to do so.

 

As a "subscriber" who curates playlists,  you basically have very limited legal rights per their terms of use. Spotify only cares about bolstering their OWN playlists - and working with artists/labels that generate revenue for them. It's only a matter of time where an artist can get their tracks on one of their lists for a fee.

 

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