On the 24th of July 2024 I received an e-mail from my distributor TuneCore. The essence of the e-mail:
"We’re reaching out today to let you know that one or more of your tracks have been flagged by Spotify for high levels of artificial streaming.
The impacted track(s) are:
Track Name(s): Love Particle
The above releases will be removed from all stores. Because Spotify charges a €10 monthly fee to TuneCore for tracks deemed to have high levels of artificial streaming activity, this fee will be charged in your local currency to your TuneCore account balance and/or the payment method on file in your account for each of the impacted track/s listed above.
...It's both TuneCore's policy and our store partners' policy to remove tracks with high volumes of artificial streaming. In this case, Spotify has notified TuneCore of the high levels of artificial streaming activity, and as a result we have processed the above release(s) for takedown from all stores."
The track - Love Particle - is part of a 33 track album/playlist upload called Microtonal Collection. It's a collection of music I uploaded to YouTube over the years. When they say "The above releases will be removed from all stores" it means that all 33 tracks will be taken down and that the release will not be eligble for re-instatement.
Just for your mental picture: Love Particle had around a 1000 streams. To my knowlegde it didn't have weird spikes in the stream data either. You can follow the analytics of your music on Spotify via artists.spotify.com, something I frequently did.
As soon as I saw this e-mail, I immediately contacted TuneCore via their ticket system. I also contacted Spotify via their Spotify for Artists Support chat.
Within a short period after the e-mail notification about being flagged, my whole release was taken down (33 tracks) and a fee was charged from my PayPal. It didn't matter that I tried to take action and figure out what was going on; once you get that e-mail, you're screwed. This issue slingshotted me into an online journey and to no surprise it's a whole rabbit hole. I am far from the only one that goes through this stuff.
Spotify for Artists Support insisted that I should contact my distributor and terminated the conversation when I tried to dive deeper into the matter. It wasn't really an interaction but more so them copy-pasting policy scripts.
My distributor TuneCore took 7 weeks to respond to my two support tickets and additional follow-up e-mails made for the issue. When they finally responded, it was a default information e-mail on streaming fraud with a bunch of links on how fraud works, how to prevent it and the consequences of it happening again. A bunch of copy-pasted policy material.
Nothing for me to understand where these supposed artificial streams are coming from. Or about me expressing that I am not partaking in illegal activities and don't use any promotion services. Nothing about how to deal with the issue. They gave me no access to the issue other than 'you have artificial streams and this is how we operate'.
As I got nothing out of their initial response, I responded to them by asking more specific questions. Again the response contained a bunch of policy lingo and no real answers to my questions.
TuneCore suggests to 'report to Spotify in great detail' and give me no insight. My music is taken down so I don't even have access to the stream data. Spotify already sent me over to TuneCore. It's a finger-pointing game at this point.
I again engaged in a conversation with the Spotify for Artists Support chat. Again they reacted with a lot of copy-pasted policy scripts. When asked about where these supposed artificial streams are coming from, they say that to protect the integrity of their artificial streaming detection systems, they are unable to share any further information.
Towards the end of this 'conversation' in which they again kept insisting that I should get in touch with my distributor, they had the audacity to just end the chat. Again.
Back to e-mailing TuneCore. To no surprise they gave nothing real and directed me back to Spotify.
And this is where the communication ended and I decided there is no point to this whole thing. My questions pretty much get ignored. So far the reactions I got from Spotify and TuneCore display no real interaction, sympathy or solution. They mostly contain policy scripts that very cleverly deflect accountability and responsibility. There seems to be no route for the artist to contest the matter at hand properly.
I have two options:
* I accept their terms of conduct and the control over my music so I can be a part of this modern game. * I remove myself from the picture and stop doing business with Spotify and TuneCore.
I unfortunately am forced to make a choice, and I choose the latter.
This choice is not only based on my experience and interactions with these companies but also on experiences of others with similar issues. Thousands of indie artists go through this stuff. It's a rigged game for the independent artist. The 'independence' of the modern artist is overshadowed by the middleman and Big Corp playing you like a fiddle under one umbrella. You go through the funnel of greed and bureaucracy and get a few crumbs for effort.
For real reviews you gotta dig a little deeper and you'll find them under comment sections of videos and threads made by people who have to deal with similar issues. Here's a video made by someone who had to go through his whole catalogue being taken down. The video dives deeper into the industry and how deep the corruption potentially goes.
Thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate all of you.
Blessings
P.S. Originally the review I've written above held more detail on all the interactions with Spotify and my distributor, but I figured I should condense it to a more digestable piece for the reader. I've written this review for personal documentation, but also to contribute to the world so people potentially don't fall into the same traps. The best way to support me now is via Bandcamp. They take a big cut, but atleast I have some grip on the process.
benyamind
My music won't be on Spotify anymore. Here's why:
On the 24th of July 2024 I received an e-mail from my distributor TuneCore. The essence of the e-mail:
"We’re reaching out today to let you know that one or more of your tracks have been flagged by Spotify for high levels of artificial streaming.
The impacted track(s) are:
Track Name(s): Love Particle
The above releases will be removed from all stores. Because Spotify charges a €10 monthly fee to TuneCore for tracks deemed to have high levels of artificial streaming activity, this fee will be charged in your local currency to your TuneCore account balance and/or the payment method on file in your account for each of the impacted track/s listed above.
...It's both TuneCore's policy and our store partners' policy to remove tracks with high volumes of artificial streaming. In this case, Spotify has notified TuneCore of the high levels of artificial streaming activity, and as a result we have processed the above release(s) for takedown from all stores."
The track - Love Particle - is part of a 33 track album/playlist upload called Microtonal Collection. It's a collection of music I uploaded to YouTube over the years. When they say "The above releases will be removed from all stores" it means that all 33 tracks will be taken down and that the release will not be eligble for re-instatement.
Just for your mental picture: Love Particle had around a 1000 streams. To my knowlegde it didn't have weird spikes in the stream data either. You can follow the analytics of your music on Spotify via artists.spotify.com, something I frequently did.
As soon as I saw this e-mail, I immediately contacted TuneCore via their ticket system. I also contacted Spotify via their Spotify for Artists Support chat.
Within a short period after the e-mail notification about being flagged, my whole release was taken down (33 tracks) and a fee was charged from my PayPal. It didn't matter that I tried to take action and figure out what was going on; once you get that e-mail, you're screwed. This issue slingshotted me into an online journey and to no surprise it's a whole rabbit hole. I am far from the only one that goes through this stuff.
Spotify for Artists Support insisted that I should contact my distributor and terminated the conversation when I tried to dive deeper into the matter. It wasn't really an interaction but more so them copy-pasting policy scripts.
My distributor TuneCore took 7 weeks to respond to my two support tickets and additional follow-up e-mails made for the issue. When they finally responded, it was a default information e-mail on streaming fraud with a bunch of links on how fraud works, how to prevent it and the consequences of it happening again. A bunch of copy-pasted policy material.
Nothing for me to understand where these supposed artificial streams are coming from. Or about me expressing that I am not partaking in illegal activities and don't use any promotion services. Nothing about how to deal with the issue. They gave me no access to the issue other than 'you have artificial streams and this is how we operate'.
As I got nothing out of their initial response, I responded to them by asking more specific questions. Again the response contained a bunch of policy lingo and no real answers to my questions.
TuneCore suggests to 'report to Spotify in great detail' and give me no insight. My music is taken down so I don't even have access to the stream data. Spotify already sent me over to TuneCore. It's a finger-pointing game at this point.
I again engaged in a conversation with the Spotify for Artists Support chat. Again they reacted with a lot of copy-pasted policy scripts. When asked about where these supposed artificial streams are coming from, they say that to protect the integrity of their artificial streaming detection systems, they are unable to share any further information.
Towards the end of this 'conversation' in which they again kept insisting that I should get in touch with my distributor, they had the audacity to just end the chat. Again.
Back to e-mailing TuneCore. To no surprise they gave nothing real and directed me back to Spotify.
And this is where the communication ended and I decided there is no point to this whole thing. My questions pretty much get ignored. So far the reactions I got from Spotify and TuneCore display no real interaction, sympathy or solution. They mostly contain policy scripts that very cleverly deflect accountability and responsibility. There seems to be no route for the artist to contest the matter at hand properly.
I have two options:
* I accept their terms of conduct and the control over my music so I can be a part of this modern game.
* I remove myself from the picture and stop doing business with Spotify and TuneCore.
I unfortunately am forced to make a choice, and I choose the latter.
This choice is not only based on my experience and interactions with these companies but also on experiences of others with similar issues. Thousands of indie artists go through this stuff. It's a rigged game for the independent artist. The 'independence' of the modern artist is overshadowed by the middleman and Big Corp playing you like a fiddle under one umbrella. You go through the funnel of greed and bureaucracy and get a few crumbs for effort.
For real reviews you gotta dig a little deeper and you'll find them under comment sections of videos and threads made by people who have to deal with similar issues. Here's a video made by someone who had to go through his whole catalogue being taken down. The video dives deeper into the industry and how deep the corruption potentially goes.
Spotify's Phony War On Bots by Benn Jordan:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVY7-...
Thanks for sticking with me. I appreciate all of you.
Blessings
P.S. Originally the review I've written above held more detail on all the interactions with Spotify and my distributor, but I figured I should condense it to a more digestable piece for the reader. I've written this review for personal documentation, but also to contribute to the world so people potentially don't fall into the same traps. The best way to support me now is via Bandcamp. They take a big cut, but atleast I have some grip on the process.
7 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 24