Fake streams and paid Spotify promotion in India: what gets songs removed

Any stream that is not a real person choosing to listen: bots, click farms, phones left looping your song, playlists filled with fake accounts, and services that promise a number of streams for a price. It does not matter who started it. If a promoter you paid used bots, the penalty lands on your song.

• The streams are removed and do not count for charts, playlists or royalties.
• The royalties are withheld, and money already reported can be clawed back from a later statement.
• A per-track fee. Since 1 April 2024 Spotify charges labels and distributors per track when flagrant artificial streaming is detected (Spotify). Distributors pass it on: TuneCore charges the account holder the 10 euros per track per month in their local currency (TuneCore), and Amuse deducts 10 US dollars per flagged track from the artist's wallet (Amuse).
• The song is taken down, and repeat cases end the artist's account with the distributor.
• Algorithms stop recommending the song, because the listening data is now noise.

• A guaranteed number of streams, plays or followers for a fixed price.
• A guaranteed place on an editorial playlist. Editors at Spotify, Apple Music and JioSaavn do not sell placements.
• Packages priced per thousand streams, for example 10,000 Spotify streams for Rs 999.
• Playlists with huge follower counts but no saves, comments or real artists, or that grew by thousands overnight.
• Streams that arrive from one or two countries your fans are not in, or at 3 am every night.
• A promoter who asks for your Spotify login.

Real promotion buys attention, not plays. You pay for an ad or a creator, a real person hears the song, and chooses whether to stream it. It is slower and less certain, and it is the only kind that builds an audience the stores' algorithms then grow.

SUF never buys streams, plays or followers, and its marketing services use real ads and real creators only. Artificial streaming is a reason SUF ends an account, because a distributor flagged for it puts every other artist's releases at risk.

It is also why the Money page shows some new earnings as Clearing for new accounts and accounts under a store review: if a store reverses money for fake streams, the reversal is covered without touching other artists. Clearing money is yours and has a release date; it is not a deduction.