On Feb. 9, the electronic artist Benn Jordan, who performs under the alias the Flashbulb, was attempting to reference one of his songs during a recording session but couldn’t access his music on Spotify or Tidal. He thought at first that his phone was glitching — but then he began receiving messages from fans asking him why he’d removed all of his music from streaming platforms. Not surprisingly, panic set in.
Jordan, who to date has earned more than $500,000 in streaming royalties and relies on them for a significant part of his income, had been unwittingly caught up in streaming services’ new crackdown on fraud. TuneCore, his distributor, had received a notice from Spotify indicating that significant artificial streaming activity had been detected on his music. TuneCore summarily removed all 23 of his albums from all streaming platforms — without warning.
Streaming fraud is one of the most serious problems facing the music industry. Because most streaming platforms operate on a pro-rata payment model — in which payment is based on an artist’s share of total streams — fraudsters have managed to steer millions of dollars away from legitimate artists, songwriters, labels and publishers. And because DIY distributors like TuneCore and Distrokid allow virtually anyone to distribute unlimited audio files to streaming platforms for around $20 per year, at a volume that is extremely difficult to police effectively, the barrier to entry is virtually nonexistent. (Note: the warning about a violation in Spotify policies pictured in the above image is from Distrokid.)
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Artists that use DIY distributors like these collectively earned $1.8 billion in 2023, representing just over 5% of the total market share of the global recorded music industry, according to music research firm MIDiA.
Spotify announced late last year the biggest shift to its payment structure since its inception. In an attempt to combat streaming fraud and get more of the revenue to “emerging and professional artists,” it will not issue royalties for tracks that accrue fewer than 1,000 streams annually and will fine distributors $10 for every track that it has detected accruing significant numbers of artificial streams. With DistroKid estimating that it distributes nearly 30,000-40,000 songs every day and TuneCore not far behind, this has significant consequences. While there are plenty of distributors that cater to independent artists and labels, DistroKid and TuneCore have taken the most aggressive approach.
TuneCore CEO Andreea Gleason and VP of Artist Support Erica Clayton revealed the pressure they were under from streaming services, which led them to implement these admittedly aggressive policies. As part of the newly formed Music Fights Fraud Alliance, TuneCore is in support of Spotify’s fines. However, Gleason says that TuneCore will be implementing a warning system moving forward.
In a statement, Gleason tells Variety, “In order to effectively prevent bad actors from diluting the royalty pool for real artists with real fans, all companies need to be a part of the solution,” she writes. “To safeguard legitimate artists, TuneCore diligently removes content reported by DSPs for high rates of fraudulent streaming activity. Despite best efforts, some legitimate artists have become victims of malicious streaming fraud or been taken advantage of by fraudsters masquerading as digital marketing or promotional companies. We are actively refining our policies and practices in order to foster an equitable streaming landscape, empowering all artists to thrive.”
DistroKid, on the other hand, has implemented a strike system by which artists are notified that Spotify has reported significant artificial streaming activity on their music. The distributor advises the artist to cease promotional activity — assuming that the artist is responsible for the streaming violations — or, if the artist is unaware of the fraudulent activity, they are advised to remove the track from Spotify or face fines or an outright ban. The artist is then required to answer a series of questions before being allowed to access their account (and their funds) to indicate they understand and how the violations took place.
Singer-songwriter Jonah Baker, who became popular with acoustic covers on YouTube, now makes around $200,000 annually from streaming revenue and has over 150 million streams across multiple platforms. He received a strike notice from DistroKid indicating significant artificial streams on his music, but says he has no idea why: He wasn’t paying any service to boost his streams. DistroKid’s customer support advised him to remove the track or face a ban, so he removed it in the hope that it wouldn’t happen with any of his other music.
DistroKid’s language in the notices indicates that it is due to Spotify’s policy, and then requires the artist to affirm via a quiz and checkboxes that they will not use any promotional program aimed specifically at Spotify.
A rep for Spotify denied that the platform has any strike or warning system and does not require artists to remove songs in these instances.
A Spotify spokesperson said in a statement to Variety: “When Spotify identifies and confirms artificial streams, we withhold royalties from those streams and report the activity to the label or distributor. Spotify does not tell labels and distributors to remove content from our platform, but they may enforce their own removal policies. We’re working to quickly remove playlists with high levels of artificial streams, as we continue our efforts to minimize the impact of stream manipulation across our platform.”
However, DistroKid offers its own promotional service for users on a plan that costs $89.99 per year. Its “Playlister” feature enables artists to find contact information for third-party, user-generated Spotify playlist editors, which is often a link to a company called SubmitHub. That company is a platform where third-party playlist curators charge a few dollars to listen to a track and consider including it on their playlist. The more popular the playlist appears, the more submissions the curator gets, and the more money they make. Although platforms like SubmitHub are not technically against Spotify’s terms of service — because the playlisters charge for consideration not inclusion — it is widely known that many of these playlists are fraught with bot activity that is likely to cause artificial streams.
Although SubmitHub publicly states “We vet and verify all of our curators before granting them access to the platform,” problematic playlist curators still manage to slip through. SubmitHub founder Jason Grishkoff explained,. “Playlisters apply to join SubmitHub and then go through a review process where we try to identify anything that might compromise an artist on Spotify, and part of that is checking whether they charge for placement. If you’re willing to charge money [for a playlist placement] you’re probably willing to buy fake plays and followers.”
Viper, an artist who uses DistroKid for distribution, had her song removed with a notice from the company indicating “100% artificial” streams on her track “Fusion.” The song had been included in official Spotify editorial and algorithmic playlists, generating nearly 14,000 streams over several weeks, before it was removed by DistroKid. It seems highly improbable that 100% of the streams for a track included on official Spotify playlists would be artificial.
Contacted by Variety, DistroKid president Phil Bauer responded, “DistroKid is required to follow the rules and policies set by streaming services. Streaming services typically do not disclose their fraud management policies as it would make the policies easier to evade,” and deferred to Spotify all questions regarding that company’s playlists.
Erroneous takedown notices aren’t limited to DIY artists. Artist manager Seth Kallen of This Fiction, whose clients include X Ambassadors, Tors and Jukebox the Ghost, was contacted by a friend at Spotify regarding his artist Bloom Twins, warning that the company had detected significant artificial streaming activity on their account, even though the group had songs included in official Spotify editorial and algorithmic playlists. Kallen swears that no one in his camp paid for artificial streams, although they did submit music to a few playlist editors on SubmitHub.
Multiple other artists and managers interviewed for this article have been the target of multiple bot attacks, which generated massive amounts of artificial streams and fake followers. All of them were knowledgeable and tried to play by the rules posted by Spotify and their distributors, while also promoting their music in legitimate ways — their only recourse was to notify their distributors and Spotify that they are aware of the attacks and had done nothing to invite them, including paying for artificial streams or hiring a playlisting service — and hope neither the distributor nor the streamers removes the music.
Although distributors and streaming services frequently use language that places the blame on the artist for fraudulent activity detected on their accounts, it has become clear that artists are often caught in the middle of a crossfire between streaming services, distributors and fraudsters attempting to game the system for their own financial gain.
While it’s understandable that some artists are trying to skirt the rules, the solution to streaming fraud should not come at the expense of innocent artists.
Ari Herstand is the author of the best-selling book How To Make It in the New Music Business, the host of the Webby award winning New Music Business podcast, the CEO and founder of the music business education company Ari’s Take, and an independent musician.