Why I Left Spotify

Spotify was never essential to my work as I compose primarily for film, television, documentaries and media. But, I always made my music available on the platform to make it accessible for everyone to listen.

Recently, a track of mine was added, without my knowledge, to a playlist service called Wavr. These scam operations use bot-generated streams and mix in legitimate artists to appear credible.

Spotify flagged the activity as “artificial streaming.” When I was notified of this, both Spotify and my distributor confirmed that it was a common scam and I was an unknowing victim. Nevertheless, inexplicably a fine was taken from my royalties, and the entire album was removed and blacklisted.

There is no appeal process. No meaningful recourse. This is their policy regardless of guilt or innocence. Spotify does not pursue the bad actors. Instead, the system penalizes the artists whose work is used without consent. Those of you signed to a major label are protected by a direct relationship and should be ok. However, the vast majority of my musician friends are independents and rely on third party distributors. This leaves you open to the same scam and fines.

The fine itself was relatively small. That’s not the point. The liability is open-ended. At any time, an artist’s catalog can be exposed to activity they didn’t initiate, and be held financially responsible for it.

I do not wish to be a part of such a platform and have therefore removed my music from Spotify effective immediately.

My music remains available on all other platforms