by Francesca | Nov 16, 2023 | Legal, Music Industry, Playlists
“Fake” artists are impersonators who steal music from real, hard-working artists like you and upload the tracks on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music under false names through unsuspecting distributors. These fake artists also create fraudulent playlists with hundreds of fake songs, making them thousands of dollars in royalties stolen from their rightful owners. It’s important as a community that we fight against these practices, and the first step is learning how to recognize them. In this post, we’ll show you what to look for…
How To Detect Fake Spotify Playlists
A Blank Profile
One of the most obvious ways to tell if a playlist is fake is to check out the playlist curators’ profile. Typically, a real profile will have fully filled out bio, profile picture, links to socials, etc. Take a look at the followers, too. A playlist with tons of likes accompanied by a curator with no followers is definitely sus. Alternatively, if the followers they do have also have no profile pics, weird names or no additional info, those are most likely bots and another good sign to stay away.
Offering Paid Placements
Paying to be featured in a playlist is not only against Spotify’s policy, but also illegal. Oftentimes a fraudulent playlist curator will have a bio that claims you can be featured too, for a price. Typically, these playlists are using illegal third-party services, bots and click-farms to amass all those streams. If your own music gets caught on one of these playlists, you risk being removed from the entire platform yourself. Worth the risk? I don’t think so.
Many Different Genres
The whole point of a playlist is to serve you a certain vibe, set a mood, and offer a perfectly curated list of songs. That being said, if you spot a playlist with no specific vibe to it and tons of different genres sprinkled throughout, that’s a red flag. Let’s be real… going from Heavy Metal to Hyper-Pop to Country on a single playlist doesn’t make sense, no matter how diverse your taste is.
Random Related Artists
Click on some of the artists in the playlist and go to their “Fans also like” section. If these recommendations consist of artists who are completely different genres or have sketchy profiles, run the other way. This one may take you some time to vet, but it’s always better to take the time to be safe than to be sorry later. To be safe, I recommend checking 5 or 6 “artists”.
Inconsistent Followers
If a playlist is popping off with thousands of followers, shouldn’t the playlist curator themselves also have a similar number of followers on their personal profile? Typically, that’s how this music streaming thing works, right? You gain organic fans of your music and they follow you. (Duh!) That being said, if a playlist has a big discrepancy between the amount of followers and streams on the playlist versus the curator’s profile, this is a big, telltale sign that bots are running rampant.
You may be thinking… “How do these fake playlists even happen?”
Through independent distributors with limited oversight, these “fake” artists swindle their way through the process and upload infringing content right under the distributors’ nose. While these practices are strongly prohibited, these impersonators simply lie, using fake information along with other various tactics hoping nobody notices until it’s too late. This seems too easy to be true, but it works. In fact, it has been working so well that these impersonators have been making insane amounts of money off of music they have zero right to.
That’s why it’s so important to be wary of fake playlists and stolen music. It’s up to us as a community to report activity like this when we see it, do our best to protect each other from falling victim to these scams, and learn how to navigate situations like these when they do arise.
“What do I do if my music has been stolen?”
In the unfortunate case that your music has been stolen by one of these scammers, don’t freak out. There are a couple things you can do. From making sure your copyrights are in order to issuing takedown notices and taking legal action. Before any of these, however, the first thing you should do is report it to Spotify.
To do this, follow these steps:
- On the desktop app, right-click the playlist title or artist name.
- Select Report. A form will open in your browser.
- Complete the form and Submit.
The next thing you can do is make a legal claim on the content. Each report is investigated on a case-by-case basis, and any content that is deemed inappropriate will be removed. To make a legal claim, click here.
Good luck!
by Francesca | Nov 9, 2023 | Music Industry, Playlists
Back in July, Symphonic Distribution acquired the music industry marketing collective Streaming Promotions. Since then, we’d like to break down exactly what we do and how you can benefit from our services right here. Here’s everything you need to know.
Everything You Need To Know About Streaming Promotions
What is it?
Streaming Promotions is a Marketing Agency that works to push your music organically through relationships. They have connections with over 1500+ playlist curators on Spotify and over 3000 playlists on the platform. They don’t pay for placements or use artificial streams, it’s all based on true human connection.
They start by understanding the client’s sound and focus tracks in a general process – tagging all genres, subgenres, moods, feelings, themes, sensory words, actions, SEO friendly words, similar artists that they believe describes you best. From there, they cross reference all the playlists they have in their network to decide the best strategy for you.
How does it work?
The best way to gain traction on streaming services is to grow monthly listeners. These fans help to grow adoption into algorithmic playlists. These algorithms assist in finding new listeners based on your existing fanbase. The larger the fanbase, the larger the audience the algorithm can find.
Streaming Promotions does this through a couple methods, first of which is through their Campaigns.
- With campaigns, they analyze their vast relationships and create a total marketplace for your project. They reach out individually to each curator and provide information specific to each artist. Then, they email you weekly reports and will schedule a call with their team at the mid-point of our campaign to discuss the progress.
Their next specialty is Song Pitching.
- With this, their promotion team will pitch your tracks (up to 5) and work to get your music featured on Spotify playlists.
Ready to get started?
Despite Symphonic’s acquisition of the service, Streaming Promotions is still a free-standing entity, offering their services to artists and labels world-wide. What’s new is the application of Symphonic’s technology and infrastructure to help double down and continue growing our business, clientele, and services as a team.
That means you get both the power of Streaming Promotions AND Symphonic combined. 🔥
Good luck!
by Francesca | Nov 9, 2023 | Music Industry, Music Production
On top of monetizing your songs through media like TV, advertising, and film, publishers are masters of making sure copyrights, song registration, and general admin are taken care of. Within that general admin comes making sure every detail of each artists’ submitted work is in tip-top shape. While you’re writing your next banger, it helps to keep everything in order as you go to make sure you don’t lose anything along the way. Among those key details, there are 5 main ones to make sure you have saved and ready to go. Let’s dive in…
5 Things You Need To Document For Every Song You Write
Lyrics
These are important to have on deck, as an artist might need them to cut the song or a music supervisor may need them for a film/tv placement down the line. Making sure you have them documented ahead of time saves the stress of locating them later if needed.
Splits
Great songwriting is the basis for some of the biggest hits ever created, and collaboration is one of the best tools to get them there. When it comes to joint songwriting, it’s important to decipher who will get credit for what before the song ever comes out.
Typically, this is done through Split Sheets. A split sheet is an agreement that identifies who wrote what percentage of the song such as the producer(s) and songwriter(s). Each creator has to agree about how the percentages are defined. Some artists will divide it evenly based on who is in the room writing and producing the song. Some will base the percentages on the person’s specific contribution lyrics, hook, melody, and beats.
When it’s time to copyright your music, it’s always a good idea to double check who gets what and how much.
Writer / Publishing Info
Writer and pub information is important for admin purposes when the song is registered. (For example, information like your PRO, IPI#, publishing name, etc.) If this data is broken, the writers don’t get paid and nobody gets the proper credit they deserve.
DOC
This one’s self explanatory, but keeping track of the DOC (aka date of creation) is a popular detail that may come up down the line. Take note!
High-Quality MP3’s
It’s also important to have both an mp3 and a WAV version of your track on file. MP3’s are the most important, but if your song happens to get the opportunity to be placed in movies, TV, etc. (aka sync), a WAV will be required.
In Conclusion…
The takeaway here is to always be prepared for anything. The last thing you want is to be asked for a detail you don’t have and have no idea how to find it. With all these in order, you’re on the right track.
Good luck!
by Francesca | Nov 9, 2023 | Music Industry, Playlists
You’re an independent artist who’s trying to promote your new release. You updated all your social media accounts, threw a release party, and even updated your EPK. So, now what?
A great way to get your music heard is through the use of Spotify playlists!
To do this, you must catch the eye of a Spotify playlist curator, the people in charge of picking YOUR songs and adding it to the appropriate playlist.It also will expose new crowds to your music and have the potential to increase your followers and listeners on Spotify. This also has the potential of catching the eye of a curator as they see an increase in popularity. Numbers don’t lie!
If you’ve ever wondered how to create a Spotify playlist then keep reading!
Follow these tips to learn how to create a Spotify playlist:
1. Get creative – Choose a theme!
Playlists can be curated and customized to practically any mood or genre these days.
In fact, playlist themes can even be based off of specific holidays, events, or other monumental time periods symbolizing a specific music type. These can be as simple as “Party Music” or “Slow Songs”.
2. Get going – Pick your songs
Spotify playlists can contain up to 3,333 songs and still be playable in offline mode. However, most playlists are made up of way less songs and we suggest having a minimum of 20-30 songs for your own! The songs should be from a variety of different artists, not just your own stuff, but still hold true to the overall theme you chose in step one.
3. Publish it and share your playlist
Playlists always do better when shared through multiple platforms! By exposing your followers on other social media sites you are increasing the likelihood of your playlist being heard!
You can easily publicize your new Spotify playlist by adding the link in your next tweet or putting it in your Instagram bio.
4. Keep it fresh – Update it!
Continuously update your playlist with new bands and songs. Maybe do a weekly or monthly update that fans can consistently follow for music suggestions. This way you will not only be keeping fans excited about new content but you’ll also be able to grab the attention of new fans and curators while keeping your OG fans satisfied at the same time too.
When it comes to Spotify playlists, the possibilities are endless! The creativity and effort involved in the creation process is completely up to you.
Don’t be discouraged by low follower counts or streams, as Spotify curators are always on the lookout for hardworking artists with great new music.
by Francesca | Nov 2, 2023 | Music Industry, Playlists
Spotify offers thousands of playlists meant to fit your every mood. Most of us save these curated playlists for things like going to sleep, working out, doing homework, etc. However, we’re all different. Not everyone falls asleep sleep to lofi beats or gets motivated to kill their workout by Cardi B.
Spotify took note of this, and they’ve implemented a killer solution.
Spotify now offers personalized playlists for each listener based on their particular taste. This means that for those specific playlists, no two will be the same. This applies to some, but not all Spotify editorial playlists, so they’ll be rolling out a blue “Personalized” badge to help signify which ones apply.
Although this seems like a solution specifically targeted towards users, this is great news for artists as well. Now, your music is in front of the best audience and listened to by just the right people.
Back it up
When Spotify first started testing this new system, they found that listeners were more likely to listen for way longer than before. These personalized editorial playlists increased the number of artists featured on playlists by 30%. The number of songs listeners were discovering increased by 35%. After discovering a song through a personalized editorial playlist, the number of listeners who looked for the track on their own for repeat listens was up by 80%. Additionally, the average number of times a listener saved a track went up 66%. Can’t argue with facts, ya’ll.
The Catch
This all sounds fine and dandy, but Spotify determines these playlists through algorithmic processes based on individual listener habits. This means if your song is on a personalized editorial playlist, it might not appear in every user’s personalized version.
The Solution
Please refrain from smashing your guitar in an annoyed rage, artists. Spotify has rectified this by creating unique links to these playlists for artists to share via Spotify for Artists and Spotify Analytics. Anyone who clicks the unique link will see a personalized version of the playlist with that artist’s track in the #1 spot. There is no longer the need to worry about your followers not being able to find your song among so many others in the playlist.
You’ll find these links on Spotify for Artists seven days after the date when your song dropped into the playlist. When listeners click that link, your song will remain on the top of the list for 24 hours. After this, the track reverts to its initial position or removed from that user’s version of the playlist. When your songs get added to one of these playlists, you’ll receive an email notification, so you can make sure to share the good news with your fans.
Never miss a beat, and optimize how you can get the most out of Spotify by sharing your music with the people who will appreciate it the most.
