Let’s start with a hypothetical. Imagine yourself as a curator. You enjoy building playlists that captivate listeners and help artists gain exposure – that might include your own act as well. You like to listen to the playlist in order to get a sense of the curation. Streaming the playlist on repeat all day, every day might sound like a great idea, too. So you do, and the streams start to go up. You ask your friends to do the same, because why not boost it some more? By the end of the month, you have 11,858 streams on your latest release. Hooray! However, you hadn’t considered the impact of unnaturally high streaming ratios on the artists in the playlists. And while loads of streams might seem like a win, having high stream-to-listener ratios is often flagged by Spotify as inauthentic – and that can have serious consequences for you as an artist.
The impact of unusual stream-to-listener ratios
Ok, but what does all this mean for artists? Well, for one, songs that are flagged for suspicious streaming patterns might lead to artists being fined, or having their music removed from Spotify – or even worse, having their entire account suspended. Along with this, royalties for songs that are flagged are often withheld. And even if a song is added back by Spotify after it’s removal, there is usually irreparable damage to that release’s algorithmic health. Long story short, the effects can be quite brutal!
What's important for curators to know is that digital streaming platforms (DSPs), especially Spotify, often hide or completely remove playlists associated with suspicious activity. impacting a curator's reach, reputation, and account.
Why Spotify takes this seriously
We’ve explained above how unusual streaming ratios can often be a signal of bot activity. Bots are programs designed to artificially inflate streams by repeatedly playing songs. They are designed to mimic human behavior, making it harder for streaming platforms to detect them. The fake streams can cause all kinds of trouble, but most importantly, they impact royalty payments.
Streaming services pay artists using a royalty pool system: a pool of money generated from subscription fees and ad revenue. The money from the pool is divided up and paid to artists, and how much each artist gets is based on the number of streams their music receives.
So, overall each artist will end up receiving a smaller cut of the pie because more of the royalty pool is paid to songs that have undetected fake streams. And you best believe that, including the DSPs, indie, and major labels are taking this type of fraud very seriously.
How we stay proactive to prevent fraudulent activity
Our automated systems flag playlists with high streaming ratios. We receive this information for playlists both on and off of SubmitHub and we regularly decline applications from playlisters who have unusual numbers in that area.
Our aim is to balance the well-being of both artists and curators. While high stream counts are generally a good thing, we make sure to pay attention to listener-to-stream ratios along with multiple other engagement metrics. This is to ensure that artists and labels are 100% safe when using SubmitHub.
We care about this topic because we believe that human-curated playlists and their curators play a key role in the entire streaming ecosystem, and we care a lot about the legitimacy of all playlists on SubmitHub. By recognizing the small yet significant risks associated with high streaming ratios, curators can not only provide the right exposure to artists but also protect them from potential harm.