Musosoup Botted Playlist Policy

Bots are a blight on streaming platforms and a serious threat to independent artists. Over the past few years, countless services have emerged that promise increased plays or exposure—but in reality, they often rely on bots to artificially inflate streaming numbers. Some are openly fraudulent, while others masquerade as legitimate services but quietly deploy bots through third parties. Either way, this practice is harmful to the entire industry and undermines genuine organic growth.

Table of content

Introduction
What is a Spotify bot?
The impact of bots on indpendent artists
Our zero-tolerance stance on bots
How we enforce our policy
If a takedown happens
If you suspect botted activity

What is a Spotify bot?

A Spotify bot is an automated script or program that mimics human behaviour to artificially inflate streams, follows, or playlist engagement. These bots can be deployed at scale to create the illusion of popularity—without any real listeners involved.

The impact of bots on indpendent artists

The biggest problem today is that innocent artists are increasingly caught in the crossfire. Streaming services have begun cracking down on unusual streaming spikes, and legitimate viral moments can be misinterpreted as suspicious activity. As this recent Guardian article explains, even genuine indie success can lead to takedowns and penalties due to high bot activity across the industry.

Unfortunately, this creates a messy and unfair situation for artists. If a streaming platform or distributor suspects botted activity—whether or not the artist was involved—tracks can be removed and accounts penalised.

Our zero-tolerance stance on bots

Anyone caught using bots on Musosoup will have their account permanently deleted.

We operate a zero-tolerance policy on botting and any related activity.

How we enforce our policy

To protect both artists and curators, we take the following actions:

We review the historical playlist activity of every new curator joining the platform.
We perform routine and ad hoc audits on curator playlists.
We investigate any report or allegation of botted activity.
We continually explore new tools and detection methods to identify suspicious behavior.

If a takedown happens

Having a track removed from a streaming platform—especially in the middle of a campaign—can be incredibly distressing. In the rare cases where this has happened, we’ve worked directly with artists to trace the issue back to specific playlists or third-party services and helped remove the harmful links.

Some of the tools we use in these investigations include:

artist.tools
isitagoodplaylist.com
SubmitHub’s Playlist Checker (credit to Jason for an excellent resource)
Spotify for Artists

There are also many other useful tools available to help you identify unusual patterns or suspicious activity around your music.

If you suspect botted activity

If you notice anything suspicious—whether it’s a playlist that doesn’t feel right, a sudden spike in streams, or a third-party service you’re unsure about—please contact us immediately at team [at] musosoup.com. We take every report seriously and will carry out a full investigation to determine what happened and what action should be taken.

So we hope that we can help build a healthier, more transparent music ecosystem—one based on real fans and real engagement.