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Spotify and the penalties for Artificial Streaming

Updated

Spotify and the penalties for Artificial Streaming

As you may know, since January 2024, Spotify is changing its royalty system to redistribute $1 Billion to Emerging and Professional Artists (who manage to exceed 1,000 streams of their tracks).

This has caused many independent artists to want to quickly cross this threshold to be able to get paid and services that guarantee streams for a small fee are taking advantage of their panic.

The problem is that, in addition to going against Spotify's policies, these “services” work through artificial streaming that directly affects you.

 

What is Artificial Streaming?

To put it simply, they are streams through bots or scripts whose sole function is to increase the number of streams of a track.

It serves? Yes, to boost the ego of the artists.

Because Industry Agents don't just look at numbers, they look, above all, at how much influence you have on your audience - real people.

 

But do artificial streams still generate royalties for me...?

It may have worked at the time but Spotify has already changed the rules of the game.

 

What will happen if Spotify detects artificial streams on my music?

Spotify will send us a monthly report indicating which ISRC codes have accumulated 90% or more artificial streams.

These songs must be taken down and Spotify will charge a penalty of 10 EUR for each ISRC.

If your music is included in this report, you will have to accept the consequences and be more careful next time.

 

How are we going to manage penalties from Sepulchral Silence?

  1. We will send an email to the user informing them that they have been reported by Spotify and what is the total amount of the penalty they must pay.
  2. All ISRCs involved will be immediately taken down.
  3. For each ISRC the user will be penalized with 10 EUR + 5 EUR administrative expenses + VAT.

 

What should I do if my content has been reported with Artificial Streaming?

First, don't worry that this does not affect the distribution of other tracks, only those reported by Spotify.

Second, there are 2 ways to pay the penalties:

  • If you have a balance greater than the penalty, it will be deducted in the next royalty payment request.
  • If you have a balance less than the penalty, you will receive a bill for the total amount to pay and your account will be suspended:
    • until that bill has been paid, or.
    • until your accumulated royalties reach the amount of the penalty.

 

How can I avoid all this?

  1. Do not pay anyone that “guarantees” streams, it goes against Spotify policies.
  2. Let the people around you know that this is not a good “birthday gift”.
  3. Work on creating a real audience that will not only guarantee you money in royalties, but also in concert tickets, official merch, annual subscriptions to your Official Fan Club or anything you can think of!