In the past year, Spotify has begun taking a harder stance on artificial streams garnered via a bot Spotify playlist. Sometimes an artist will hire a 3rd party marketing company or playlist promotion service that utilizes bots when the copy on their website promises organic streams. This has resulted in artists that use Tunecore or Distrokid to distribute their music, and then having the distributor claim that the artist’s streams are inflated with bots and that their music is being removed. Unfortunately, the only thing Spotify has to say about working with 3rd party marketing services is basically to do your research. Sometimes this research can still result in companies lying, or hyped reviews for said company to get on a Spotify playlist resulting in you receiving artificial streams.
If you are unsure that your music has been added to a bot playlist, one of the most common ways to identify a bot playlist is that the bot plays will show up as streams from Helsinki Finland. Coincidentally, Spotify’s headquarters is Helsinki Finland.. Often times you will see your music added to a random playlist that has some company name in it such as ChartMob.net or something similar in the title.
Spotify’s Solution
Spotify has finally listened to all of the artists that have had problems with this, and has now created a form within Spotify for Artists that allows you to report the playlist. Simply login to your Spotify for Artists account and head over to the Playlist Reporter.
Once you have submitted the report, an actual human at Spotify will evaluate the playlist and remove the playlist and user accounts. Spotify has a FAQ and page with more details around artificial streaming and things you as an artist can do to mitigate it at https://artists.spotify.com/artificial-streaming
If you’ve been subjected to botted spotify playlists I’d love to hear about your experience. Feel free to drop me a line.