My Spotify got fake streams... here's what I did.

This happened To me about the same time! Spotify wouldn't even talk to me about it even though I had an idea of where it might have come from. I thought the same thing you did. Spotify.
Doesn't even want to hear it. They didn't care at all about who's breaking the rules or the law.Or what have you all they cared about was making damn sure they took half of my All time streams in the process. And that's about how my first year in the business went. What I don't get is how can some random jo schmo Be allowed to get us reprimanded? I've got a baby's mama That will ruin me before I even start if she finds out she can do this. How the hell are we supposed to be protected against this? I sure in the hell did not agree to be on any list.And I did not agree to any bots whatsoever. Yet I lost half of my revenue because of it. I go through lander. Lander won't even tell me where they put my music. No matter how many times do you ask. Truly I think it's spotify doing it to save themselves money. That's why they don't try to get to the bottom of it at all

I just ended up here for this reason. Weird thing, when I followed the tracks like you did here, I saw a lot of plays from UK. Not sure why though. Checking statistics on soundcloud it was a bit more spreaded over the worlds, so I guess your bot-theory could work in this for me.

Fake streams strike again! Bots are relentless!

Spotify removed all of my husband's songs, saying that they were added to botted playlists. This was done without our permission.
Tunecore stole all the royalties after I reported a problem.
Independent artists are being penalized while Spotify does nothing to the botted Playlist. Independent artists should be protected from this happening.
We worked hard to get real fans and had nothing to do with adding songs to these playlists.
It seems to be a way to get rid of independent artists that are not signed with a lable.
I hope that Spotify loses all of it's customers...
Very sad...

my best song got deleted cuz of that

Don’t worry about it?? What?!?!? My music got 1000 streams from a unknown bot playlist and it’s already been taken down

I has some spikes but it was their radio playlist algorithim. I used no services nor was i on a playlist and average 20 to 30nstreams a day, sometimes with a little spoke to 60 streams for a few days (always same cities though). Anyway, they removed the song and I had no say and said ask the distributor, but distributor said ask Spotify... mad. As if I give a crap about 0.004pence per play for 30 listens... lol. I'm not active in promoting stuff.

I have experienced that at first I got gassed and then I looked at my monthly listeners and I was like hang on I didn’t give anyone consent to put my song on a playlist, it’s upsetting really.

Not to worry? I have had it happen three times in three months and didn't buy any of them. I reported the playlists to Spotify and contacted CDbaby as to what was going on. My reward: I got not only taken down, but fined on top of it and still waiting for the ax to fall on the next two

You didn't "do" anything. Misleading title.

Have you ever gotten negative Spotify streams? I've seen it now a couple times- it's like they gave me streams and took em back.... how can a stream be a negative number???

It happened to me on Spotify with a bonus track on the Prepare to Meet Your Maker Soundtrack Recordings and CD Baby removed the entire album.

this just happened to me LOL

It seems that many artist are innocent they havent initiated fake streams. It is possible that sporify's enemy is doing this fake streams. How can Spotify consider Artist responsible for fake streams. Because , there are 4 to 5 possibility to every case . Also, it seems many artist are innocent. It is done by Spotify's enemy. Artist should raise this point on social media.

I am kinda happy to hear, that I am not the only one with this issue. This happened to me and my album was taken down.

Maybe we indie musicians should stop promoting Spotify and use platforms like YouTube, Bandcamp etc more

Thanks for this amazing content! Today cdbaby n spotify took down my album, I uploaded it 9 years ago n had less than 200k streams in total. They just sent me an email saying they detected artificial streams, implying that I have hired some rogue marketing service. Well I did NOt, I spent an hour with spotify's help desk today n they said "talk 2 ur distributor", my distributor takes months 2 replay... Please help what can I do???

I hate this shit. What if somebody else pays for bots on your song? How can you control that?!

yeah, this happened to me and spotify took my song down and I can't upload it anywhere now. I didn't even run any paid ads or anything at that stage. Pretty frustrating

Looking at the name of the user and the name of the second playlist, I think it's a restaurant's playlist. The username translates roughly to Restaurant Mr. Elephant, and the playlist name is roughly Mr. Elephant's Playlist. Not sure if the restaurant was trying playlists out and ultimate didn't use that one, but seems like that could be the case here.

I just got done dealing with a scammer (paid promotion) and saw a similar spike with one of my songs. I should be happy about the numbers, but I know they’re fake so I’m not. Feels like my song is tainted now.

Spotify took down one of my songs because of this. And now it happened again. So we will see if they take this one down. Very frustrating.

Like what do we even do fr it’s not our fault and we have no control it’s infuriating

Would not call them test for bot scams, they put other songs within them as a form of camo to hide the song they are botting.

This has happened to me. I don't know what to do. I feel pretty powerless to do anything. Tried explaining my situation to distrokid and Spotify, but they don't believe me and insist that I've knowingly used artificial streaming. I'm hoping my music/account doesn't get taken down.

Thank you for the help, I almost lost my mind because of it, I was literrally thinking I would be banned because of that, but you just calm down my mind, preciate it.

Just had my album removed without warning due to this AI algorithm flagging random bot plays.
It’s extremely unfair that the artist is punished by having its music removed! Furious! 😡😡😡

This is happening to me right now. I’m doing all I can to get a just outcome, and have my music reinstated on Spotify. It’s wrong for so many reasons.

Its crazy. Something/ somebody is putting fake streams from country’s i have almost 0 listeners on my song. I didn’t pay for guaranteed streams or have anything to do with it. But yess my song is now offline and spotify is punishing me for it. If it stays like this we all need to go away from this streaming platform. They litterly are ruining it for every small artist last year…

Thank you very much it was extremely helpful!!!

I get fake listeners from canada, argentina, usa, brasil and some of like that countries. I didn't pay for it but still my song on the list. I don't even see the list. Damn spotify.

I need help about it. ...................

Thus just happened to me. An absolute JOKE.

Hi, my first song recntly been added to a few playlists i suspect are fake and got alot of streams from them, i think the majority of streams for the realese by now. do you know if theres any action i can take against it? maybe report it somehow? couldnt find in spotify for artists anything about it. and since its most of my streams im afraid i might get banned or something even thogh i had nothing to do with it :/ anyways thanks for the help with everything :)

WAVR decided to bot 2 of my songs against my will. I contacted both Spotify and my distributor after noticing the bot streams and both of them told me that they can't do anything about it and that my music won't be effected.

Unfortunately, those songs were on 2 different albums and now both albums have been removed.
The kicker is that there's nothing that can be done to resolve this issue.

Think it's time to go back to Soundcloud at this point... :/

My spikes came from playlist that i never added my music to and they still deleted my music

I have most of my catalogue with distrokid but I recently signed a distribution deal with a label and they distribute via a Universal Music subsidiary which is big here in India. My latest single that I distributed with them got added to one such fake playlist, I was running hardcore FB ads and had a very successful campaign so the playlist couldn't mess up my data too much but they did have an affect. But I've not been flagged or recieved a notice of any kind, I'd probably just let these losers keep trying their luck but they're obviously not gonna get a single penny from me. I feel if you are with a good distributor it helps a lot. Leaving this here hoping it helps someone. Cheers!

our song got removed from spotify today for artificial streams. spotify says talk to distrokid and distrokid says talk to spotify. we didn’t pay for streams and we don’t even know how to…was hoping to find some answers on youtube :( spotify says all we can do is prove they are real streams and we have no idea
how to do that. Wondering if your video is what happened to us too.

Just happened to me ...they took down 5 albums and I only use distrokid and distrokids wheel of playlist...now I'm in hell trying to get it fixed ..no bots no out side marketing

It happened to me a coupla days ago. I´m scared since I heard stories, that you can lose your spotify account? Is this true, what can I do against it?

SBOTify

actaully a lot of streams are by bot playlists and it wont be flagged. plays are not an indication of success people , spotify doesnt pay artists and spotify is the last stinky desperate fart of a dying corpse. please purchase an artists music and downlaod where possible .

Thanlyou

Hello, I want to ask you a question. My song is Chartmob, which I recently published on Spotify. It was on a playlist called net and after a few days, I noticed that when I looked at the playlist, my song is no longer in it. Do you think this is dangerous? Will my song be removed? I'm very scared, I didn't do anything. (my english a lot of bad sorry)

Its really BS Spotify says you probably paid for some playlist promotion and I absolutely didn’t and they took my album down. No appeal process or anything. Totally unfair.