Spotify’s new Artist Profile Protection tackles fake artist releases head-on
Spotify is giving artists more control over what tracks appear under their profile to combat fake releases and AI tracks.
It’s not uncommon to see music appearing under the wrong artist’s pages across streaming platforms. Sometimes it’s harmless. It could be a metadata mix-up or just two artists releasing music under the same name. But, it’s increasingly becoming something else entirely.
Thanks to distributors like RouteNote, getting your music onto streaming platforms is easier than ever. While that’s a win for independent artists, it also opens the door to bad actors. More often we’re seeing fake releases and AI-generated tracks being deliberately uploaded under popular artists to game the system.
Now, Spotify is stepping in to combat this with the introduction of Artist Profile Protection.
What is Spotify’s Artist Profile Protection?
Spotify’s new Artist Profile Protection feature is designed to give artists control over what music appears under their profile.
Currently rolling out in beta in Spotify for Artists on desktop and mobile web, the optional tool means nothing goes live on your profile without your say-so. In practice, it adds a review step before any music goes live, meaning artists can approve or decline any release that’s delivered under their name before it appears under their profile.
How it works
If you’re in the beta and have opted in to Artist Profile Protection, you’ll receive a notification whenever new music is submitted to Spotify under your name.
From there, you can easily approve or decline each release. If approved, the track will go live as normal and appear on your profile, contribute to your stats, and show up in recommendations. One thing to bear in mind: just because you decline a release on Spotify, doesn’t stop it from going live on other platforms.
To keep things running smoothly, Spotify is also introducing an artist key which is a unique code that artists can share with trusted distributors. Any release delivered with that key can be automatically approved for release, meaning legitimate drops won’t get held up by Artist Profile Protection.
Why this matters
Artist Profile Protection isn’t just a small quality-of-life update, it’s a first-of-its-kind response to a growing issue. In fact, Spotify says that greater visibility before releases go live has been one of the most-requested features from artists over the past year.
The rise of AI-generated music has only made the problem worse. Last year, we saw AI tracks pop up under the profiles of dead artists. More recently, Sony announced it had removed 135,000 AI deepfake songs that had appeared under their artists’ profiles on streaming platforms.
For artists, false releases could damage reputation and distort streaming data. By introducing an approval step before anything goes live, Spotify is effectively stopping the problem at the source.
Moving forward
For now, Artist Profile Protection is in beta, and only available to selected artists who choose to opt in. As with any test, Spotify will be gathering feedback to refine the feature before a wider rollout.
Clearly though, Spotify is tackling an issue which needs addressing. As streaming platforms face increasing pressure to tackle misattribution and the floods of AI content, Artist Profile Protection is leading the way in preventing one of the industry’s biggest issues.