On October 18, our distributor CD Baby notified us that Spotify had reportedly found irregular streaming patterns associated with one of Timoteo's releases. Upon inspection through Spotify for Artists, we discovered a sudden spike in the song "Hundred Miles" stream count, which garnered 130+ streams from October 14 to 16. We identified the source of these numbers as the playlist called Daily Top Hits by a user named Envua (stylized as Eոνυа). This playlist, which has since been renamed to ᏔᎪᏙᏒ.ai | Charts | Weekly Discovery with over 1M saves, had in its description the URL www.envua.org (not hyperlinked), which when entered in a browser redirects to the website wavr.ai, which offers "stream plans" apparently guaranteeing a certain number of streams depending on the amount one is willing to pay. Whether the said Spotify profile and playlist are indeed connected with WAVR is unclear, but a quick bot check says WAVR.AI is not legit anyway.
Subtletape Recordings submitted its comment on the same day, maintaining that our team has never asked nor paid third-party services to be on any playlists to deliberately inflate streaming numbers. We expressed our strong opposition to the unjust and unfair decision Spotify made and demanded CD Baby stand by its truthful artists by obliging Spotify to review the matter thoroughly. We also contacted Spotify for Artists Support, which advised us to ask CD Baby to coordinate with Spotify's Content Team and forward whatever information or evidence we have to prevent the takedown. Despite these efforts, CD Baby officially pulled out all of Down on the Road, except for the singles "'To Ashes and Dust" and "Ramblin' Round", from Spotify today, October 21. The remaining songs are likely to face the same fate.
This is unacceptable. CD Baby has not responded to our support ticket as of press time. All it could have done was insist that Spotify conduct a comprehensive review rather than (not far from) mindlessly flag and remove releases believed to have been fraudulently marketed. By all means, we find it absurd that Spotify, after detecting unusual streaming activity, proceeds to penalize artists immediately and not instead investigate the suspicious playlists it surely can identify. We use music services fairly and in good faith and will never knowingly engage in unethical promotion practices. If any such activity has impacted our releases, we can only assume it occurred beyond our control.
It is frustrating to see the playlist flagged by the Spotify community as a source of artificial streams still active, while Timoteo's material is gone without Spotify ever hearing our side because our distributor did not need a day or two to seek our explanation and defend us at the very least.
We have taken other steps to ensure Timoteo does not fall victim to this again, including verifying with WAVR their ownership of the playlist and the circumstances surrounding his music's inclusion.
We maintain that:
- We have never asked nor paid third-party services to be on any playlists to inflate streaming numbers
- We vehemently find unacceptable the removal of our first-ever release as a small label advocating creative integrity
- We strongly oppose any further potential removal of our releases from Spotify
- We want Spotify to investigate and take down bogus playlists instead of penalizing small artists like Timoteo who did not even (and will never) consent to faking his stream count
- We demand that CD Baby stand firmly by its truthful artists and effectively convey our position to Spotify
Rest assured we are doing our utmost to appeal this misguided decision by CD Baby and Spotify. We are optimistic there is still a chance to reinstate Timoteo's debut masterpiece. Meanwhile, Down on the Road is still available on other digital streaming platforms. If you'd like to directly support Timoteo, please consider purchasing his music on Bandcamp. Lastly, we urge you to help us get CD Baby's and Spotify's attention on this matter in any way possible. Thank you.
