It seems users can covertly profit from artists by using their names without permission thanks to a loop hole on Spotify that targets independent musicians.

Since artists, managers, and record companies have been trying to game the system since the early 1950s, it shouldn’t be shocking whenever a new strategy is developed to make an artist appear more successful than they actually are.

While the most recent Spotify scam may not be the most egregious, it is tragically impacting independent artists who have the least financial means.

There have been many ways to game streaming networks over the years, what’s more is the most recent scam is really easy to pull off.

Regardless of whether the featured artist is aware of your existence, let alone collaborates, just list them as a featured artist on your release.

By doing this, the music is added to Spotify’s Release Radar, where it is then made known to the artist’s followers that a new release has been made.
Excited listeners play the song and find that their favourite artist isn’t on it at all, but it’s too late because a “listen” has already been recorded, and the con artist has already received the intended stream/royalties.

It turns out that Release Radar is currently a significant stream driver.
Indeed, according to Spotify, it “has risen to the top-three personalised playlist for listeners throughout the world.”

Every Friday, customers receive a customised Release Radar with new music from artists they follow, artists they listen to and other artists Spotify believes they’ll enjoy.

The con, however, goes a step further because the phoney partnerships also appear on the artists’ Spotify pages, and removing them requires some time and effort.

However this does not hold true for major artists…

If you’re currently considering mentioning that Drake or Billie Eilish could be suitable featured artists to tag in your next upcoming release, you should reconsider.
This only functions (at least for the time being) with independent artists that have distribution companies that permit artists to mention partners without getting their permissions.
The primary reason why is because It appears that labels have a “block list” that stops unwanted tagging. Additionally, it is believed that Spotify has a department that looks for well-known artist names in releases in order to spot these types of issues before they arise.

The source of this story’s initial publication, Billboard, claims that “gaming has a financial incentive.”
Release Radar: According to another label owner whose artists are frequently targeted in this way, a bogus collaboration between an up-and-coming act and one with a million Spotify followers can result in between 50,000 and 100,000 streams for the former in a day.
There is money to be made, but it’s not a lot, maybe $100 or $200, if an act can sneakily leverage off a known artist’s profile undetected.

You can guarantee that the corporation will soon crack down harder on this Spotify scam though as customers are starting to complain about it, but for the time being, if you’re a well-known independent musician, be on the lookout.