Fake Streams: How to Spot Artificial Streaming and Protect Your Releases

Artificial streaming means plays that do not come from real people choosing to listen: bots, click farms, looped devices and fake playlists. Streaming services remove these plays and act against the releases involved. Even artists who never bought streams can be affected by a "promotion" service that used them.

What it can cost you

• Removed streams and withheld royalties for the affected tracks.
• Fees. Spotify charges labels and distributors per track when flagrant artificial streaming is detected, and distributors may pass these costs on.
• Takedowns of the affected releases, and in serious cases the account.
• Bad data. Bot plays fill your statistics with fake listeners, so algorithmic playlists recommend your music to the wrong audience or not at all.

Warning signs in your statistics

• A sudden jump in streams with almost no saves or follows.
• Most streams from one playlist you do not recognise.
• Listeners concentrated in a city or country with no connection to your audience or promotion.
• Very high streams per listener, for example the same listeners playing a song dozens of times a day.
• Streams that stop completely when a "campaign" ends.

How to vet a promotion service

Walk away if a service:

• guarantees a number of streams, followers or playlist placements;
• sells packages priced per thousand streams;
• will not tell you which playlists or channels it uses;
• promises results "safe from detection".

Legitimate promotion sells your time with real audiences: ads you control, curators who may say no, press and radio campaigns with reports you can check. See how to find genuine independent playlists.

If you see suspicious streams

1. Do not wait for the next royalty report. Contact your distributor's support with the track, the dates and the playlist link if you know it.
2. Ask the playlist owner to remove your song if it was added without your request.
3. Stop any promotion service that may be involved and keep the receipts and messages.

The 1,000-stream threshold

Spotify also requires a track to reach at least 1,000 streams in the previous 12 months before it earns recording royalties. Streams that are removed as artificial do not count towards it.

What actually works

Real growth comes from consistent releases, content that makes people curious and listeners who save and return. It is slower, but every listener you gain stays useful for your next release. Read how Spotify's algorithmic playlists work for the signals that matter.

SpaceMedia's anti-fraud policy explains how we handle artificial streaming. Release your music with SpaceMedia and grow it with real listeners.