Spotify removed all my work 😭

[Yfnite]

I am an artist who has been regularly releasing music, tirelessly  promoting through my social media. I am completely devastated, my mental well-being is seriously taking a toll. For some reason last night I got an email saying “ Spotify has detected suspicious activity”. It should be noted that I have around 11,000 monthly listeners of which I built up tirelessly. I have never bought into any streaming services to artificially boost my streams at all as this is breaking terms of service which I agreed to when signing up. I didn’t receive any prior notice or information about anything, Spotify has just up and removed all my tracks! I need them reinstated as I have not broken any rules that I agreed to when signing up. I will send whatever documents necessary to prove I have not bought into anything suspicious (bank statements/PayPal statements etc) I have sent Spotify support an email regarding this but haven’t gotten any response. I need immediate assistance because all my hard work is gone and my mental health is suffering. Please somebody reach out.

[Sebasty]

Hey @Yfnite 

I'd recommend getting in contact with Spotify for Artist team on this, just go here and scroll down to find the Contact Us button. 🙂

I hope you get this resolved!

All the best and have a nice day 🙂

[Yfnite]

Hi thanks for the response. So far I have contacted Spotify for Artists support already and they mentioned I need to contact my distributor but the only problem now is I have already contacted distrokid 2 days ago and I have not got any response. So now I’m stuck and I really don’t know what to do. I wish all these problems would just go away.

[Yfnite]

My worst nightmare, Spotify Artist support team are saying to tell my distributor to contact the Content Team to reinstate my releases but when I ask DistroKid support about this they just keep closing my tickets.

[paulgilmore]

Really sad to hear that you're lost in closing-ticket limbo man. Keep trying and keep bothering Distrokid for a action. I am pretty sure that soon enough they will have to respond to you. If I were you, I'd also tweet the situation and tag them so it's public. Sometimes twitter does miracles 

[Yfnite]

Do you think I can just close my banned account on distrokid and open a new one with my secondary email?

[paulgilmore]

Even tho what you are suggesting can be possible, I would first wait for the distrokid response. Reinstating your artist account would be far more easier - especially since they told you to ask Distro to contact the Content Team. Seems like it's resolved from their side. It could be that Distrokid actually "shut down" your account and pulled the music and not Spotify.

In cases of "suspicious activity" the distributor (in this case Distrokid) receives a notification from Spotify (account flag). I guess a distro-guy done messed up and instead of contacting you (highly unlikely since they are very impersonal) simply shut down your account.

That's why I mentioned Twitter. 

[Yfnite]

Wow, I didn't think about it like that but it makes so much sense, I got no prior emails, no warnings, no nothing, apparently Spotify removed my first 10 tracks and then DistroKid put the nail in the coffin by just outright removing the upcoming tracks for December. I made a tweet, here's hoping.

[Yfnite]

Do you know what category to put account restoration under in their ticket form? All the categories are just relating to uploading issues or billing and refund etc, no options for account related which is why I keep getting my tickets closed?

[Yfnite]

Ok now I just got a response from another Spotify Artists support agent saying they can't reinstate my releases. :'( :'( :'(, so I guess I should just create a new account?