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

[Synthoid_Sounds]

If anything, you deserve some sort of award for patience far beyond the norm.  I've had nearly the same conversation, with the same sort of circumstance, a few of my tracks were mysteriously cited for having used bots or fake streams.
What's particularly laughable is when the recommendation is offered to visit the Spotify help center . . . but wait, I'm already at the help center, that's why I'm on chat now, which is located in the help center.

This really is a Monty Python type of skit, sort of reminds me of the infamous Cheese Shop episode, but I digress.

The kids who are actually there at the chat farm (I'm imagining some trendy looking 20-somethings}, this is their first big job in their imaginary music industry career . . . reciting their script notes.

The only  thing they can actually help anyone with are minor tech issues about how to use the website features, interpret some of the analytics (well, maybe, some of these kids are a bit brighter than others).

 Of course, my favorite response is the ubiquitous "we can't tell you because we don't want to reveal our fraud detection process to other scammers" answer . . . no matter what the question actually is, that's their autoresponse when they don't even understand the question.

The other autoresponse is the chat agent will, at a certain random moment, send you off to a "specialist", which is no more a specialist in anything than anyone else, it's just a way to pretend like something is actually happenng, and pass you off to whatever random chat person is available, to whom you then have to re-explain from scratch the entire scenario (oh, right, there was supposed to be some notes taken,right?).

They'll try that 2 or 3 times more, but if you're still there, hoping for some sort of answer, suddenly out of the blue, appears the dreaded "the chat conversation has ended" message.

Fortunately for me, at least, my distributor was surprisingly sympathetic and walked me through the process of having my material resubmitted to Spotify . . . which I did, and it's been there ever since.

[Fabtones]

I spoke to 2 very reputable lawyers who said it would cost me more to pay them than it would to just re launch my album with a new distributor. Which is what I did. I'm glad you were able to resubmit if I'm not mistaken through the same distributor. CD Baby, whom
I've been with for 25 years**bleep** for me. The obvious has already been stated. This is a really lowdown way of avoiding payment times thousands and thousands of us indie artists they've have been doing this to. Good luck with your music.I'm sure it's great!

[Fabtones]

This is in-f*****g-sane. I could paste almost verbatim the endless runaround chat I had with these jerks. There are no words. Well, the
Best with your music.I'm sure it's terrific!

[erikstearns]

Regardless. We do get the point because most, if not all of us on this thread have been through that.

[erikstearns]

Yeah, I found the same thing. I haven't found a new distributer yet. So if
you have a good one, let me know.

Thanks.

[erikstearns]

Yeah, isn't that amazing? I would laugh, but it's doing harm to a lot of
people. Nonetheless, you're right about the whole thing.

[stamargo]

Same thing happened to me! I have never and would never pay for streams but apparently one of my songs ended up on a "hot new music" playlist, so Spotify flagged and removed the entire album last week. How are we supposed to police who puts our songs on a playlist?!? And is it a coincidence that the track in question just broke Spotify's 1000 streams payment threshold? I wouldn't put it past them to target independent musicians and kick our music off their service so they never pay us anything.

[chancetosteal]

This is entirely inadequate.  The same thing has happened to our most recent album and Spotify artist support has been beyond worthless. I'm pretty sure even your "human" advisors are just slightly better programmed bots and it's really rich of spotify to bring the hammer down on artists who are the victims of bot playlists to then offer worthless bot driven "support" that essentially says, "go talk to your distributor we're not allowed to discuss our policies with you goodbye."

Spotify NEEDS to have way more transparency about these decisions and a clear way for artists to dispute the removal of their music before it happens.  Unlike your support staff, we are real humans who have put a lot of time, energy, money and soul into producing this art and trying to get it in front of potential listeners.  We're not trying to farm bot listens for fractions of a penny, we want fans; we want to make a difference in someones life with our music.

I came here after my garbage experience with spotify support it said "solved." Now I find you've just got a kafkaesque system where you keep passing the buck and send us into an endless support loop with no real help. Thanks!

[JusticeForArtists]

Hello there!

Any updates since you posted this?

I thought I was the only one but reading through this thread it's clear that

1. Spotify automatically flags growing accounts.

2. Spotify For Artists Customer service is useless and most probably botted. 

I have had more than 10+ conversations with " agents " that end the conversation with the same template message without helping at all.

We should all Spam Spotity both on Twitter, Instagram and Threads.

I am considering filing a lawsuit for them to take this seriously!

[NotD]

Yes but there is that BLIP basically saying that you’ve still been involved in some sort of ‘fraudulent/botty’ kind of activity 😖