Sean Jane

CD Baby pulled my debut EP from Spotify after detecting "irregular" streaming in 1 of the 4 songs on the EP. Someone (not me!) had placed one of my songs on a playlist that had bots streaming it. Instead of going after the playlister or the bots (which would be very easy to do from a technical standpoint), Spotify and CD Baby are colluding against independent artists so they don't have to pay them royalties. You can read about this occurring all over Reddit to many indie artists. On top of removing an EP that I had paid to distribute, CD Baby is now also trying to withhold $11.70 for the 600 streams that occurred on the bot playlist. The funny thing is, we all know that Spotify and CD Baby do not pay out anywhere near $11.70 for 600 streams. You would earn maybe $2 from 600 streams and then CD Baby takes a cut. So why would they withhold more money than they pay out for the equivalent amount of streams? They never paid out those streams to begin with! Everything about this is shady. I'm sure they are counting down the days to AI music replacing all of us so that they don't have to pay out any royalties at all.

CD Baby pulled my debut EP from Spotify after detecting "irregular" streaming in 1 of the 4 songs on the EP. Someone (not me!) had placed one of my songs on a playlist that had bots streaming it. Instead of going after the playlister or the bots (which would be very easy to do from a technical standpoint), Spotify and CD Baby are colluding against independent artists so they don't have to pay them royalties. You can read about this occurring all over Reddit to many indie artists. On top of removing an EP that I had paid to distribute, CD Baby is now also trying to withhold $11.70 for the 600 streams that occurred on the bot playlist. The funny thing is, we all know that Spotify and CD Baby do not pay out anywhere near $11.70 for 600 streams. You would earn maybe $2 from 600 streams and then CD Baby takes a cut. So why would they withhold more money than they pay out for the equivalent amount of streams? They never paid out those streams to begin with! Everything about this is shady. I'm sure they are counting down the days to AI music replacing all of us so that they don't have to pay out any royalties at all.

CD Baby pulled my debut EP from Spotify after detecting "irregular" streaming in 1 of the 4 songs on the EP. Someone (not me!) had placed one of my songs on a playlist that had bots streaming it. Instead of going after the playlister or the bots (which would be very easy to do from a technical standpoint), Spotify and CD Baby are colluding against independent artists so they don't have to pay them royalties. You can read about this occurring all over Reddit to many indie artists. On top of removing an EP that I had paid to distribute, CD Baby is now also trying to withhold $11.70 for the 600 streams that occurred on the bot playlist. The funny thing is, we all know that Spotify and CD Baby do not pay out anywhere near $11.70 for 600 streams. You would earn maybe $2 from 600 streams and then CD Baby takes a cut. So why would they withhold more money than they pay out for the equivalent amount of streams? They never paid out those streams to begin with! Everything about this is shady. I'm sure they are counting down the days to AI music replacing all of us so that they don't have to pay out any royalties at all. Also, good luck getting a hold of a human from CD Baby or Spotify's support teams.