Stop Playlist Scams

[ASouthworth]

There is a widespread Spotify playlist scam that has been running for at least a year, and i've seen it result in artists getting their music pulled from the platform when they've done nothing wrong. 

Basically the scam is a playlist company will add songs by 2,000 artists per day to their playlist, pumps bots to all the songs on it (maybe even some followers) hoping the artist will see the spike in streams and check it out in Spotify for Artists. The playlist has contact information or a website link on it, and they're hoping someone falls for it and hires them for more fake promo.

The playlist company is adding songs without the artists permission, and sometimes artists get banned even though they never initiated this.

Here are some ideas for how Spotify can fix this problem:

1. Make it impossible to put URL's or email addresses in the playlist descriptions
2. Provide some option for artists to report the playlists and have their songs removed from the playlist
3. Create better detection algorithms that punish the playlist creator and not the artists on the playlists
4. Switch to a user centric payment model that makes bots non-viable
5. Impose limits on the Spotify API that make it costly for bad actors to scale these types of bot attacks

[NotD]

Yeh and good luck to you also…. There just seems to be no scruples anymore…. Whoever will bring auto $$$$ for them this will go to the. Max. The rest of us well then just… perish….

Don’t give up!

[NotD]

I know right!

You keep at it too. I’m sure people out there really enjoy it. Keep at it. 👍🏼

[NotD]

It’s just so wrong…
Keep making your creations… there (is/should be) room for all of us !

[rearl1234]

I am an artist in the US. My music keeps getting added to this botted Spotify playlist (Shong.live) and I keep reporting it, but the “company” keeps deleting and reuploading the playlist so fast, they get away with it. Has anyone else had this experience? I don’t even know how these people got a hold of my music in the first place! I don’t pay for playlisting. Is there a way to report the whole account to Spotify for being a scam?

[TanyaS]

Hi @rearl1234 

To report an issue regarding intellectual property rights or deception, use this link to do the same 

[JusticeForArtists]

Have you had a chat with your distributor since this happened?

and exactly how long ago ( in months and days ) did this happen?

[JoseCorteReal]

Since January 2024 until now

[erikstearns]

Sme with me. That's when two of my albums got taken down.

[erikstearns]

Tunecore? Yeah. They said they won't put the back up even though it was
admitted that Spotify made a mistake. They also took my royalties.

[erikstearns]

The worst thing is that they're getting away with it.