Playlist Takedown Notification

[lukesp_]

Plan

Premium

Country

Brazil

Device

(Samsung Galaxy A71, Windows 10)

Operating System

(Android)

My Question or Issue

I got emails saying my playlists had been taken down. Below is the text of one of the emails:

'Hello,

We have found the following content to be in violation of our content policies, and we have removed it. Please see our Spotify Terms and Conditions of Use for more information.

(Playlist url code)
Regards,

Spotify'

The big question is: What is it about? What was the violation and why am I allegedly in breach of Spotify's Terms and Conditions of Use?

I've been using Spotify on the Premium plan for years, and that's just now (and with my biggest playlists). They lost their name and photo. My playlists have become the second largest in the category they are in, so I have strong suspicions that the takedowns are due to malicious reports.

I humbly and kindly ask for an explanation of what happened and why it happened and a solution.

Sincerely,

Lucas.

[g3Mo]

Plan

Premium

Country

India

Device

(iPhone 15 Pro)

Operating System

(iOS)

My Question or Issue

I got an email from (no_reply at spotify dot com)saying my playlists had been taken down. Below is the text of the email:

'" Hello,

We have automatically removed the following content after receiving a report:

URI/URL: spotify:playlist:3C7FXzgUwDq7hY68lW5B2d
Content Type: PLAYLIST

Please see our Platform Rules for more information.

Please do not reply to this email.

Spotify "

What has happened here? What platform rule has the track violated. It was all tracks on Spotify that I added to it.

I've been using Spotify on the Premium plan since 2013. They playlist lost its name and photo. The list recently picked up momentum and lot more people were liking it. 

I have strong suspicions that the takedowns are due to malicious reports.

I humbly and kindly ask for an explanation of what happened, why it happened and a solution.

Gautham
Link to the original playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3C7FXzgUwDq7hY68lW5B2d

[g3Mo]

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3C7FXzgUwDq7hY68lW5B2d

I just had this playlist had over 800 likes taken down. Confused about what's happening. 

[g3Mo]

It got restored, now I've received the takedown notification again.

What's going on?

Detailed thread here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Your-Library/Playlist-Takedown-Notification/m-p/5850660

[g3Mo]

It got restored today morning and now I got one more takedown notification. What's happening?

I saw another related thread with users complaining of the same here: https://community.spotify.com/t5/Your-Library/Playlist-Takedown-Notification/m-p/5850660

[RexHuang]

I have the same issue today. My playlist's name has been removed since I received the takedown email, then I added the name again. Then I received another takedown email and my playlist's name has been removed again.  

This is my playlist and I don't see any wrong with my playlist 🙄

[g3Mo]

Yeah. It's so puzzling what's going on. Is this someone casually reporting it with bad intention so that they can claim the name? Wonder what's happening.

I also don't understand what a take down means. Does it mean that it's no longer discoverable?

[yaktam]

You are the target of someone who "Doesn't Like" your playlist. And potentially wants to create an identical playlist and get all the likes. Who knows, other than the perp doing this.

How do they do it?

Try it yourself. Go thru the motions of "Reporting a playlist" you follow. This is what you'll see:

Then ask yourself. Is Spotify "woke" enough yet?

Lol.

[g3Mo]

Wow. That's it? There's no review by Spotify in any way?

What a weird situation. I can nuke a playlist from existence just cos I don't like it? Wow.

Thanks a bunch for the explanation @yaktam

[yaktam]

Its quite sad. There are some amazing playlists that are being taken down. I was following Morgan's playlist called "Fallout Radio." And during this whole fiasco, as my two playlists were getting nuked daily, I noticed that "Fallout Radio" had been nuked and was showing up in my playist directory as greyed out. Just like my own playlists. Sadder even, was that he had over 100,000 likes. And I couldn't find a "competitor" that was using the same playlist name or song list. Sure, a lot of those songs in there, from the 40's, 50's would NEVER be played on mainstream radio. But you don't have to listen to the music. Just move on. 

And the worst part? Is that he/she don't know their playlist has been taken down. Or, potentially, they're not with us anymore.

Anyways, I've copied the playlist, renamed it to "Fallout Radio v2", told the story about Morgan's original playlist in the description. Hope he/she come back to us.

[g3Mo]

@yaktam : I tried finding this said playlist. I don't think I found the right one.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IU1wdims0DyDAKbuxaxYO?si=e39a9c76b7a24652 - this is not the one right?

Can you point me to the right playlist?

[yaktam]

HI g3Mo,

This is Morgan's Original: 
0LCzBfmaBiOh4K92e2BeJC

[g3Mo]

Thank you yaktam. I have been listening to it and loving it.

The fact that it just stands out there, undefended. Sad. Sigh.

[g3Mo]

The list I shared above, is by one 'Jon' - the list is a replica. Wonder if he was the one who initiated a takedown.

Here's what I've done - I created a copy with credits to morgan. Long live morgan's efforts.

Link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5QpkH0ibQfvXOdfVfgSch5?si=dab03331c6f94a01

[yaktam]

I did the same. Fallout Radio v2. 🙂

[MJD5]

Any updates here. I had a list taken down for no reason.

[yaktam]

No update from Spotify. They're just as "woke" as they were over a year ago, when they implemented the category of,

"I just don't like it" 

as a valid reason for "Reporting" someones playlist. "Stupid" doesn't begin to describe the mentality of the person that  suggested that as a valid reason for takedowns. Followed by "Bigger Stupid" that allowed it to happen.

Go thru this thread and find the python script that ChatGPT helped me create that uses Spotify's own API to automatically rename your playlist. Then run it automatically in Windows (I'm sure we can help MAC users as well) until you wear the poor sod that decided to target you, down into the ground.

Sigh. I have a lot of patience. Just not for stupidity.

[MJD5]

It was taken down but the list was still "there" so I reproduced it and just dropped the words Love Vigilantes from the title because one of the Lightning Seeds tracks(Pure) is almost a direct rip-off. Pale Blue Eye have a Lightning Seeds Vibe, hence the title:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6TBxVpqbSt8CWdZBCeTOXv?si=d8e27fd1045f4637

No clue what guideline I breached and they were babbling about the pic but they put them in, I don't.

I am the head of the IT department at our firm so I had a lot of fun on a chat while they were telling me to check for viruses and take the app off all my devices and reload them.

[yaktam]

There's the rub. You probably haven't done ANYTHING wrong. You've just been targetted by someone who doesn't "like" your playlist. 

Being the head of IT, you'll have no problems taking the script found in this thread and modifying the variables to match your playlist. You can even change the description using this same script.

Then have it run on some spare w/s. On the hour. Every hour.

Your adversary will eventually give up. Because (and some might say "thoughtfully") this person can't automate "reporting" your playlist. At least not using the Spotify API.

And life will be grand again!

[yaktam]

Oh and one more thing, in case my post wasn't clear.

You don't have to reproduce anything. You just need to add the name of the playlist back. And that's it. It's live again.

A couple people out here have reproduced OTHER people's playlists, because those people's playlists got targetted and either don't use Spotify anymore, don't know that their playlist has been "taken down" or are simply no longer with us.

Morgan's "Fallout Radio" was taken down about the same time I started having issues. He had over 100,000 likes. It's been down for some time now. I loved that playlist. So I reproduced it, and renamed in Fallout Radio v2. Other people have done likewise, with a tip of the hat to Morgan, wherever he/she is.

[ryankellz]

Just read this whole thread, as I am now too a victim of these malicious reports.  My playlist of 18k followers was greyed out, after I read the takedown notification email from spotify this morning.  I added the title back and looks good to go for now.  Fully anticipating more false reports for no reason, and having to rinse and repeat.  I absolutely did nothing wrong as per their terms they linked to.  Absolute joke.  I made a backup of the playlist with the same description in case that gets removed down the road.  Also, took a screenshot of the live playlist and the follower count just so I can see if I'm still getting new followers after re-adding my title. spotify:playlist:1rWChOE2cdHhAXHmC4mTIi

Hopefully I don't have to start building a script as outlined earlier in the thread... but I see it coming to that.