Spot-n-fry fraud: Song removals on Spotify explained

Big news hit the streaming world recently, and WordPlay T. Jay is here to break down why it happened.

Spotify has removed 750,000 songs from its streaming service, alleging they were fraudulently racking up streams through things like running playlists, scripts and bots.

Some are upset at the service for the move, many of whom are artists that distribute through DistroKid, the largest distributor in the world.

Some people have done nothing wrong, but DistroKid is not to blame, as it would not make sense for the company to “undistribute” music its artists have paid to put on Spotify.

DistroKid is also implementing a system to help artists dispute song removal if their plays were legitimate.

The issue Spotify has is people using fake or fraudulent playlist services to raise their plays, sometimes without understanding what they are doing.

A scenario would be a company pitching to an artist, “Pay us $300 and we will get you more streams.” The artists pays it, then the company creates an automated playlist to increase the stream count with no one actually listening to the music. The artist may be unaware of the method and think the company is legitimate.

When Spotify identifies this type of fraud, it reserves the right to withhold royalties and take measures to ensure plays are accurately reflected. It defines an artificial stream as one that does not reflect genuine user listening intent, rather, an attempt to manipulate Spotify’s system to exaggerate plays.

Spotify dedicates numerous resources to stopping this type of fraud and pay artists fairly.

Fraud is fairly simple to detect, as automated processes rarely show any type of human interaction, like song skips, likes, volume adjustment, etc.

While some may have been negatively and wrongly affected, the move by Spotify can be considered a good one for a few reasons.

For one, people who promote their songs organically will have less competition from fraudulent companies. Secondly, the royalty pool will also be less saturated, as the streams will be properly divided among artists.

In the end, you don’t want fraud in Spotify plays because every fake play is money Spotify is leaking out to someone who did not work to earn it.

For more information about the Spotify move and DistroKid’s response, check out the video below.