Spotify has therefore removed the ability for one or more of your playlists to be available publicly

[adminutzurio]

Hello everybody,

I have tried customer service three times. The first time I was assured that the problem will be resolved soon (and is being escalated), but sadly nothing happened.

The second and third times I was told they don't know and to try support email. I tried a few times but I always got back the same email in broken English and they never reply to any follow-up so I don't really know what else to do.

Last time writing to customer support I was told to try to reply to the no-reply Spotify email which to no surprise didn't work. So I am (helpfully understandably) frustrated and I don't really know where to turn now.

My issue:

I have now gotten three emails saying "It has come to Spotify’s attention that your account has engaged in unauthorized use of the Spotify service in violation of the Terms. Spotify has therefore removed the ability for one or more of your playlists to be available publicly."

Me and my friends have been doing these playlists for over three years and I am certain there is nothing "unauthorized" about them at all. Two of these were really small with only a few listeners, only the last one was somewhat bigger with maybe 100 listeners per month.

Is there anyone else I could write to who can actually help me?

Thank you in advance! 

[LoftMusic]

I had the same problem today.  Talked to more than 10 people in Spotify's support and they do not offer any light or alternative. And somehow they were trained to simply close the chat if they feel like it. Aside from the chat tool disconnecting every 10 seconds and forcing a manual reload of the page,

There is no chance of escalation or opening a ticket. It's done unilaterally and without chance of understanding what is wrong. I do my best to adhere to good practices: I never sold or bought followers, listeners, etc. And still it comes to this.

[HalfNathan]

This is a common issue. Go to the playlist's options and set it as public and display it on your profile that it is fully visible. Here is a video of how to do this: https://streamable.com/pk1bhk. Hopefully this helps!

[Mattia444]

Thanks for the hint but i can't see the "Make public" button that is on the video you sent me here

[Mattia444]

Yes, i'm on the web version (I've Win11) and i never heard of "Spicetify"

[AlejaR]

Hey @Mattia444,

Thanks for your reply and for the info shared.

In this case, we'd suggest checking your email so you can verify if perhaps you received a message regarding the behavior described.

Meanwhile, we'd recommend you create a copy of said playlist by going to the three-dot menu> Add to other playlist> Create new playlist.

If you need anything else, the Community is here for you.

[Mattia444]

So do Spotify send you emails if your playlist get some bugs? (I searched "Spotify" word in all of my mails and there is no mail that regard the bugged playlist)
I also installed Spotify on my pc because i can't make a copy of my playlist as you said from the web version. Infact you can use this -> "Three-dot menu > Add to other playlist > Create new playlist" only in the desktop version (Installing Spotify on your pc)
You also said "Help others find this answer and click "Accept as Solution"." but wait a minute, what is the solution? I still have the issue...

[GIINO]

This happened to me to today only for the chat agent say they can provide no further details and just ends the chat. No thank you for chatting in nothing. Very rude in my opinion. Furthermore, the lack of detailing of which TOS was violated was never provided. Any assistance would be great for this.

[mvrley]

Noticed my playlist was marked as public but wasn't showing up when I clicked on my profile.

Checked my emails, and saw one from Spotify stating "your account has engaged in unauthorized use of the Spotify service in violation of the Terms. Spotify has therefore removed the ability for one or more of your playlists to be available publicly."

Not entirely sure why this happened? There were no issues with this previously, so I'm confused why it has just now been flagged for "violation". Playlist had a solid colour cover and the bio was "current favs." — nothing agains the terms and conditions.

Any help on how to make it public again?

[Synthoid_Sounds]

I have the exact same situation.  I tried 5 times to use the "contact us" messaging (as it says to do in the email)  to find out what I had done (I have absolutely no idea what this was for), but every time, after explaining to an agent what was going on, all they could do was say "refer to the email, we can't help you", and then end the conversation.  This is VERY WEIRD.  

Whatever it is I may have done, by accident or unaware, I'll gladly change or fix . . . just tell me what it is that triggered this notice from Spotify, it's been impossible to get more information.

I would think it would be to Spotify's benefit to at least inform anyone who receives one of these notices to EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED, so the artist can at least have a chance to fix whatever the problem was.

My material is all my own content, there are no lyrics, these are all synth instrumentals, absolutely no illicit content of any kind.

If someone "reported" my playlists, can I at least find out why???

I have a growing list of followers, over 120,000 streams on Soundcloud, just recently got some of my tracks onto Spotify.

How can this be fixed or solved?  As I said, I'll gladly cooperate with Spotify, if they can provide the opportunity to do so.

[gogetify]

My playlists have been forcefully privated as well, for seemingly no reason too. One customer support person told me in broken english to reply to the "no-reply" email, while the other closed the conversation after saying nothing for 6 minutes. A quick Google search showed that this has happened to dozens of other users, all with equally unhelpful Spotify advisors. This is ridiculous; my playlists weren't public to begin with.

[Allo_Allo]

Spotify staff members should actually be responding to the issues we are talking to about here but none of them seem to be concerned.

[DoomNation]

I recently got my playlists reinstated after some (a lot) of persistence. They stated that the systems flagged me down for “artificial streaming” they found that it was being played on other related accounts. Well, yeah I got a family premium account. Some were getting shutdown after like 10 streams in an entire month. I was getting real listeners from posting it on Reddit and Twitter.  You just have to be really careful. If you have members of your household you like your playlist, make sure only one person is playing it a time. Ironically, people are getting away with so much worse. I get that they need to something about the bot problem that’s stealing millions from the artist’s royalty pool. I’ve been working in tech for over 20 years. I know that no matter how powerful or intuitive AI software can be, there are always flaws and bugs that need to be worked out, updated..patched. I can point out many in Spotify. There are literally armies of AI generated bands that are flooding our algorithmic playlists. I’m constantly on a blocking spree. I’m just doing the best I can to stay under the radar and not wake anything up.

[Allo_Allo]

Hello what email did you use to contact them and persist ? Cause I have been trying and they do not respond at all.

[DoomNation]

You can also add global at spotify dot com. That email covers Global Support as well. In the meantime try not to stream or let anyone stream your playlist from the same ip address at the same time. I think that sets trips the robocop algorithm. Let me know if that worked for you. Also don't let a playlist loop 24/7, adding multiple copies of a song in the same playlist etc...

[Playlist_Subs]

This is actually a very good recommendation! I know people often stream their playlists 24/7, sometimes from different accounts in different browsers or PCs from the same IP address and streaming on "mute". That's obviously not advisable and it can clearly lead to persecutions of some sort, but I think it might not be the case of getting a playlist banned, at least not in most cases...

[DoomNation]

Streaming on mute is just dumb. As far as the other stuff, they're just asking to get banned. 

[moshiri]

My Question or Issue

i have a public playlist that i can see in my profile and when i'm logged it counts it as my public playlists, but no other person can see it on my profile.
tried removing and adding again but it doesn't work.
link to Playlist:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35aSnZK1LKaPf1bnm5mNVd

Plan

Free

Country

USA

Device

ASUS ROG A15/ All Browsers

Operating System

(Windows 11)

[moshiri]

i realized when i log out from here i can't see the playlist anymore in the original post.
here it is:
open.spotify[dot]com/playlist/35aSnZK1LKaPf1bnm5mNVd?si=fc17c3328d25442f

[DoomNation]

they try to combat fake streaming by putting in an algorithm to detect fake streaming/bots. Unfortunately, it puts up a lot of false flags and users that have done nothing wrong get caught in the web. Meanwhile actual botted playlists get away with it constantly. I slew of complaints and articles were written about real culprits such as wavr.ai and artistr who are still thriving by botting and selling streams. I can only speculate that they take a cut of profits from them or it's actually one of them running a side hustle. If you have a better explanation PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I'M ALL EARS. Absolute failure! I'm done fighting with them. Just keep a backup of your playlists so you can relaunch because they will keep doing it over and over again and you are not worth their time for an explanation. You will lose the followers you have gained but they don't care. Unless they fix their software to catch the real bot curators this is just how it will be. This company is huge with no real competition. Unless you are a major label, they see you as less than nothing. 

[worldexplore]

This happened to me too.  After spending two years trying to build a playlist, that was still fairly small (only 674 listeners).

It is crushing because I spent money on social media ads promoting the playlist to help build it. 

I did a lot of legitimate work to build it and get listeners who actually listen. 

We absolutely did not violate any terms.   

And as everyone here said it would be nice if the vague email specified what "terms" were violated so we could fix it. 

I wonder in the end if it's maybe an artist on the playlist who doesn't want to be on it.   
Spotify should create an option for an artist to request to be removed from a Playlist.  
Rather than reporting a playlist that then disappears into the "privacy" lockdown.