As your trusted partner, we wanted to take a moment to warn you about some deceptive advertisements we’ve recently seen for illegitimate music promotion services.
Third parties that promise playlist placements or a specific number of streams in exchange for compensation are likely using illegitimate practices without your knowledge. These services can threaten your hard work, resulting in the potential withholding of streams or royalties, or even complete removal of your catalogue from streaming services.
Our streaming partners work diligently to ensure streams are legitimate, meaning they reflect genuine user listening intent. If a service finds that you (or a third party hired by you or on your behalf) have boosted play counts through any automated, deceptive, fraudulent or other invalid means (digital bots, “click farms”, payment for placement on playlists, etc.), the service may permanently remove your entire catalogue.
If you’re in the market for a music promotion service, make sure to do your research before you hire them.
If you would like to read even more about this topic, Spotify has recently shared some information on these services as well as on how to gain an authentic following. You can find this information here.
You can also watch the episode “What Is Artificial Streaming?” of Spotify’s The Game Plan Explains to learn more on the subject here.
Consequences of Artificial Streaming
Artificial streaming is a material breach of our terms & conditions and Record Union takes this issue very seriously and any detection of artificial streaming will result in royalty deductions, withheld royalties, financial penalties, removal of releases and if this behaviour continues, account termination.
Furthermore, your music may be banned from music services and other distribution services as well. Also, leading music services are now introducing artificial streaming penalty fees that are being charged to the distributors. As a consequence of this, Record Union will now charge fees to users who are involved in artificial streaming. We do however commit to ensure that non-violating artists are not impacted by artificial streaming penalties in any way.