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

[erikstearns]

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me on this and I'm glad you reached out. I'm
pretty much inundated with not only messages, but other things in life, so I
have to be cogent here.

I did some research and the best resource I found was that of Top Music
Attorney, www.topmusicattorney.com <> . Also
check out the YouTube channel for Top Music Attorney in that she gives a lot
of updates regarding Spotify and the subsequent distribution services
scandals like Distro Kid and TuneCore. She's recommended in addition to her
expertise in the music industry and the current scandals in progress, she's
also the spearhead of putting together a class action lawsuit. I highly
recommend subscribing and keeping up with her updates as right now, she's
the best chance at us coming together in numbers and rectifying this
situation.

I hope this helps and thanks again for reaching out.

Sincerely,

Erik.

[erikstearns]

Hi,

Thanks for getting back to me on this and I'm glad you reached out. I'm
pretty much inundated with not only messages, but other things in life, so I
have to be cogent here.

I did some research and the best resource I found was that of Top Music
Attorney. I would check out the YouTube channel in that she gives a lot of
updates regarding Spotify and the subsequent distribution services scandals
like Distro Kid and TuneCore. She's recommended in addition to her
expertise in the music industry and the current scandals in progress, she's
also the spearhead of putting together a class action lawsuit. I highly
recommend subscribing and keeping up with her updates as right now, she's
the best chance at us coming together in numbers and rectifying this
situation.

I hope this helps and thanks again for reaching out.

Thanks,

Erik

[JoseCorteReal]

Thanx Eric... I'm gonna see it... We must be together and close to people
that can help abou this. I remember some years ago Facebook did something
with data and had to pay a fine to some users. And it was a lot. Spotify is
having money problems for sure. It's shooting everything that's moving and
naturally causing problems to innocent artists. The problem is that they
can cause more problems as revenge. Small artists can't be banned because
they aren't happy with these actions... But we never know what they can
do... If we were a great band from a big company they would solve things
right away... But we aren't, we are the weakest link. They have so much
power that my distribution (Routenote) took down some albums and singles
from all digital stores because of Spotify's accusation. That's weird. I
would accept that if it was a Spotify complaint then they would take down
the stuff only from Spotify, but they decided to consider me guilty without
any defense.
Regards
José

[erikstearns]

Very well said! What you say is right on and it's time for the small artists
to finally prevail.

Sincerely,

Erik.

[DracorAlexander]

Same thing happened to me with Distrokid.  They pulled my album, saying that I was using artificial streaming.  I never used any service or did anything to promote artificial streaming.  It's just wrong what they're doing.  I SAY IT'S TIME FOR A CLASS ACTION LAW SUITE!

[JoseCorteReal]

You must be on Spotify for artists and watch everyday which playlists are
adding you and if they are suspicious. Spotify is very smart they don't ban
suspicious playlists. those playlists use our music without us asking for
the service or paying for promotional services...
Spotify this way have a reason to takedown our music.
They took down this playlist finally. But my songs aren't back to digital
distribution,,,

CHARTMOB.NET - CHART PROMOTIONS
<>[image: image.png]

[erikstearns]

I don't really do that sort of surveillance because I'm just a one-man
operation. But, yes, they do set the system to entrap the small artists and
that's totally amoral.

[NotD]

Got zero support from Spotify. Was told they couldn’t give me more information and to talk to distributor…… distributor advised it was Spotify who removed the release?!  Spotify also told me not to pay for the promise of streams etc… I NEVER HAVE!!! Frustrating 

[erikstearns]

I'm not surprised. It was my story as well as so many others. I would
recommend looking up Top Music Attorney on YouTube. She gives great updates
as to the TuneCore, Distro Kid, Spotify situation. She's the one likely to
organize a class action lawsuit. I recommend getting information from
there, that way when it happens, you're in the know when it goes down.

Thanks,

Erik.

[Redplanetdrifter]

I just got a notification from distrokid a couple hours ago that one of my songs was removed from Spotify for artificial streams. DK told me to contact spotify and spotify said to contact DK. What a joke! All distrokid has responded with so far is “just say no to artificial streaming” like I’m guilty of that! I’ve never paid any promotion company for anything, and never will. By the way, the song in question has been on Spotify for over two years and has maybe 2500 streams, not like I’ve ever promoted it much myself.