Anomaly Streaming Reports

The anomaly reports that we send contain information about streams which music services tell us will not be monetised, for a variety of reasons. The reasons include reported artificial streaming, and the monetisation rules set by services like Spotify. This guide is an overview of the information in these reports, and how you can share feedback or issues with us. 

Some music services send us reports of tracks that appear to have attracted artificial streams. Often the activity is caused by paid promotional activity, although there are many reasons why streams might appear to services as artificial.

Artificial activity distorts streaming revenue. Music services take this very seriously. We appreciate your help doing everything possible to make sure your music is not subject to artificial streaming activity. 

Artificial streaming refers to plays, listens, or streams that are generated by means other than legitimate listening by the user. That can range from leaving an account constantly repeating a track, through to paid-for campaigns that use more advanced technical methods like bots and automated listening. 

If streams of your music are included in the reports we receive from a music service, we will let you know. The report will include the number of streams identified by the music service.

The services will remove those streams from royalty calculations. This may lead to a deduction by the music service from future royalties. Repeated artificial activity may result in partial or full catalogue removal. 

We suggest you familiarise yourself with the terms of service and policies of major music streaming platforms. Have a look at what constitutes artificial streaming and the potential consequences for artists, labels, or users involved.

Spotify provide the following guide:

https://allotlines.io/article/don%E2%80%99t-put-your-music-at-risk

Please thoroughly research any potential marketing and promotion partners. Only collaborate with reliable organisations. Make sure nobody you engage with uses bots or other similar tactics to artificially increase streams.

If the music was supplied to you by a third party, we’d recommend sharing this information with them, reviewing your relationship and working with them to prevent a recurrence.

If you see low numbers of reported streams in the reports, it is possible that your music is being used by third parties engaging in artificial streaming activity without your knowledge. 

Spotify may levy a fee on Allot Lines for any track for which artificial streams account for more than 90% of its total streams. The fee which Spotify may levy on us is 50 USD per track per month.

If the fines are applied to tracks that you have supplied to us, we will deduct penalty fees from your monthly payments. We will only deduct fines from the specific partners who supplied tracks which are subject to the fines we are charged.

Spotify pays a reduced royalty rate for noise content (meaning “​​all non-music, non-spoken-word audio” e.g. nature or machine sounds).

To be royalty-bearing at all, noise content must be more than two minutes long. We receive reports from Spotify of tracks they have identified as noise, and which are under 2 minutes long. The reports tell us the number of streams which are not royalty-bearing because of this policy.

We share these reports with you, identified as Spotify Sub 2 Minutes Tracks’.

If you want to contest the identification of your tracks as noise, please email [email protected] with the ISRCs and a short explanation.  

If you have noise content under 2 minutes and want to update the audio files please get in touch using [email protected].

Spotify will start paying revenue for any track, of any genre, once it has attracted at least 1,000 streams from a minimum of 50 unique listeners in the preceding 12 month period. There's some more information from Spotify about how it works here:

https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/track-monetization-eligibility/

We receive reports from Spotify of tracks which have not met this threshold. The reports tell us the number of streams which are not royalty-bearing because of this policy. We share these reports with you, identified as ‘Spotify Unqualified Tracks’.

If you want to contest your tracks being included in any of these reports, please email [email protected] with the affected ISRCs and a short explanation.

If you have any questions, please get in touch at [email protected]