🔵 Banned from Spotify: the problem facing smaller artists

Unpicking the complex issue of fake streams and false claims

Hi there,

Most people probably don’t know, but I have over the years put the odd track out onto Bandcamp and DSPs via a tiny label I run with friends.

Last week, I received notice from DistroKid, telling me that one of the tracks we released had been pulled from Spotify:

Puzzled, I logged in to take a look. Sure enough, one song from a two song release was now removed from the platform.

I think it goes without saying that no foul play was afoot from our side here; truth is I think we’d largely forgotten that the track, released a few years ago now, was even on there.

Logging in to DistroKid and looking at the stats, it wasn’t hard to see why someone would conclude these plays were getting juiced:

Zoom in further and the case is pretty clear:

If someone were to show me these stats, I would draw the same conclusion: you don’t get nearly 1,000 plays in one day, with pretty much zero either side of that time, without this stinking to high heaven of someone paying to juice their streams.

It also isn’t lost on me that the way these streams were manipulated takes us just over that controversial 1,000 plays mark that would mean we would, in theory anyway, now be eligible to earn money from streams on this track.

Frankly then, I cannot argue with the logic here.

However there’s one problem: nobody from our three-person crew has been paying to promote streams. Ergo the only conclusion here is that somehow the track got caught up in someone else possibly attempting to juice a playlist (we assume) on which the track was featured.

The next step was to then try and find evidence of playlist additions. The artist did not have a Spotify for Artists account (being something of a one-off release - equivalent to a dance white label) so I took a look on Soundcharts.

That found no playlist additions. A dead-end.

As things stand then, the track is pulled from the platform, and we have no way to decisively prove that we are innocent in the whole matter.

Hence me writing about this: it strikes me that something is wildly off when I could, for example, go and pay a dubious track-juicing service to boost plays on a song - an act which would almost certainly result in said track being pulled down. It is almost something one could weaponise, and I have little doubt that somewhere, someone has likely done exactly that against an artist they have beef with or whatever else.

Really though, this exposes the first issue here. Anyone could run an operation falsely driving plays on a platform - and as long as that is the case, any artist is arguably open to accusations of falsely inflating streams.

Honestly, I sympathise with the DSPs here. In reality there is no way to prevent false plays on something, or if there is, it might require a significant undertaking to somehow lock that in.

Smaller artists, who are dealing with lower stream counts in general, are surely more likely to be spottable, on the basis even 1,000 streams can trigger an alarm of sorts. This means they are more likely to have tracks taken down, with little means to prove they are not responsible, making for something of a battle to get the track reinstated.

That in turn brings us to the second issue here: the fact that the little guys in this fight have no real representation or means to address this all that well.

I do understand why, in the sense that Spotify might need a battalion of staff to handle false claims of artificially inflating plays. Irrespective, it means there is a persistent issue here.

There is no question the whole situation feels unfair to artists. With no means to prove innocence beyond just stating “it wasn’t me”, there’s no real way to show you are acting in good faith.

Ultimately, perhaps it illustrates the wider issue with the streaming format as a whole. When anyone can influence plays in this manner - on the basis accessing the music and playing it does not even necessarily require a paid account - you have a system wide open to meddling and malign influence.

There is no simple solution here. One might argue that perhaps it is a responsibility of DSPs in general to work to combat these streams. Apple Music has explained its process of late, and I am sure Spotify might have something somewhere to offer the same kind of “we’re working on this” response, but in the meantime, it honestly feels like another reason to just not bother putting music on the platform.

After all, why waste time if someone can, with little to no real effort, just boost streams and get the song taken down? Or, as was the case here, you just wind up banned with no clue as to what’s even happened?

This is a small song - nothing, in the grand scheme. However I feel it represents more grist to the mill of this notion that Spotify is really just a home for the biggest artists who have all the machinery of support and clout on their side. The smaller artists, it feels, would simply be better focusing time and energy elsewhere.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 Listening to “Central Market” by Tyondai Braxton. I’ve had this on a lot of late, prompting me to write a Missed Listens piece for it, which you can read here. A wonderful album though, and a massive breath of fresh air, even now.

📺 Watching “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” trailer on YouTube. It looks like Marvel’s response to making a pig’s ear of the current MCU might have been to go back to fifties future kitsch vibes and start over. Which sounds wise, frankly. I’m hyped!

📖 Reading “The 2010s lost classics that became sleeper hits a decade on”. A great round-up of songs that were entirely missed upon release, but which then went on to become hits 10+ years later.

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Notes in dispatches:

• Thank you to everyone who responded to last week’s call for interest in the Indie Worker Pass. We’ve had a solid number of responses, including some of the bigger labels and retailers out there, and we’re now looking to progress this along. If you missed all of this, please read last week’s Network Notes where I explain the whole idea.

• I’m now posting over on Bluesky too, so if you want hot takes on stories as they break etc, follow me over there. 🦋

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