Why Am I Seeing "Spotify Fraud Fees" in My Sales Report?

Spotify has recently implemented new measures to reduce stream-boosting activity on their platform. These practices aim to maintain a fair and transparent streaming environment for all artists and creators. To fully understand what Spotify categorizes as stream-boosting, we encourage you to carefully read their dedicated article here: Spotify Artificial Streaming.

What Are Spotify Fraud Fees?

Whenever Spotify detects that stream-boosting was involved with one of your releases, they apply penalties. These penalties are directly deducted from your sales. This means that, for each month where Spotify identifies stream-boosting, your corresponding sales report will display the amount of penalties applied.

At the time of calculating your revenue, Spotify will not consider whether or not the stream-boosting was done intentionally, so once the penalties have been applied it will be very hard to retract them. It's very important that you take the proactive initiative to keep an eye on your streams and to contact them as soon as you see anything suspicious.

How Are These Penalties Handled by iMusician?

We automatically deduct the penalties from your cash credit balance. However, if the penalties deducted by Spotify exceed the available cash credit on your iMusician account, your cash credit balance will turn negative. In this scenario:

• The option to request payouts will be blocked until your balance is back to positive.
• We will invoice you for the remaining amount of penalties you need to pay.

When Spotify shares the penalties with us, unfortunately, they do not specify where the non-organic streams are coming from. We can only let you know about the amount of penalties that were applied, for which months, and the barcodes of the affected releases.

If you find yourself in this situation, please contact our support team for assistance.

How Can I Avoid Spotify Fraud Fees?

The best way to prevent these penalties is to ensure that your streaming activity complies with Spotify’s guidelines. Here are some tips:

1. If your music appears on a suspicious playlist, report it immediately to Spotify using their Playlist Reporter tool.
2. When engaging in promotion campaigns, make sure you use Spotify-approved tools, such as their Campaign Kit.

By taking these precautions, you can safeguard your releases from being associated with artificial streaming and avoid incurring Spotify fraud fees 👍

Your music. Your audience. Your brand. Sign up today and start sharing! 🎶Join iMusician now