12/08/2025
If you were wondering why our releases are no longer available on Spotify, you should read this.
Hello, B1t Crunch3r here, I need to make a big announcement regarding the future of Gradient Audio on Spotify. TLDR: We left Spotify, you can now stream as much as you want on Bandcamp for free.
Gradient Audio as a concept was born in Merlin, OR, USA in 2010 during a 6 - 7 month period of my friends and I collaborating, networking and contributing. The brand logo was created by DFRNT and the idea for Gradient was inspired in part by his label, Echodub. The website and release artwork was created by HxdB, the label was born in my friend, Ambur Rose's house. It moved to Portland, Oregon in fall of 2010. And became very close with what I considered its' sister label, Phantom Hertz. A whole list of people contributed music and put their names & reputations on Gradient Audio. The label went live in November of 2010 and it has been a quasi-community effort since. We have always collectively decided what the label sounds like. I wanted to make a label my friends and I could always come back to when we felt like releasing music on the home label, but we would all still have the freedom and support to release anywhere we wanted. Gradient Audio has been through a lot that I have had to navigate over the years to keep it from running into the rocks. Unfortunately after almost 15 years we now face one of our biggest challenges yet. We are leaving Spotify, not just as a label, but as a team, a community. I involved a small core group of artists that I felt represented the huge diversity of Gradient Audio's larger body of artists and their perspectives so we could try to represent as many of them as possible in this decision. We put it to a vote, and voted unanimously to take the entire Gradient Audio and Keep Deep label catalogs off of Spotify indefinitely. On behalf of those people involved in this decision I would like to explain what happened, why it hopefully will matter to you and what it means for the future of our labels.
This is the story of what happened and how we got here. Since 2023 there have been stories appearing on Youtube and Reddit about independent artists' music being removed from Spotify due to what Spotify had deemed "artificial streaming". Artificial streaming is fraud, full stop, and it is a serious accusation to make against a distributor, label, or artist. Many of the artists' stories referenced were about not just having their music taken down but actually finding out they were judged to be in violation of the terms of their agreements with their respective distributors. Some were fined, the fines in some cases piled up and put these labels and artists in debt to their distributors, who were paying those fines to Spotify on the artist behalf. Two weeks ago we learned that Spotify had determined that several of our songs on the platform ranging in ages between 7 - 14 years old on average, were "flagged" for artificial streaming at 91%+. After reviewing reports it was obvious that Spotify would be piling on 1 - 2 "fines" a month against Gradient and Keep Deep. Worse, it was apparent that we were likely to see as many as 6 "fines" a month for the foreseeable future but most importantly we would be "fined" to some extent almost every single month until this policy changes. It was just a matter of how many, not if. The repeated violations could lead us to be in breach of our own legal obligations, which would open us up to much worse things than just fines.
There is no appeal process, Spotify's determinations are deemed final and no evidence of any kind is offered to justify the "fines". The process for dealing with this is to use Spotify For Artists analytic data to supplement the reports distributors receive. However, it appears that Spotify destroys the data after the offending track(s) have been flagged at 91% or higher artificial streams and the reports are around 30 days behind? Playlist data seems to be missing as well, we would use this to identify when a track has been added to a botted playlist but even if analytics could be used, there is no process to remove a track from a botted playlist and the remedy, as instructed by Spotify, is to remove the flagged track(s), give them new ISRC codes and resubmit the entire release. This means the flagged tracks start at zero again for their play counts and sales. It's extremely unfair to the affected artists considering they have been allowing Spotify to continue profiting off their work, even though it is estimated by journalists as of Jan 1, 2024 somewhere around 80% of music on the entire platform is not getting paid for the streams they generate. And instead the artists lucky enough to make money off their streams now get up to double the payout the artists were getting back when Spotify still paid for every stream. On Jan 1, 2024, Spotify decided that any song with less than 1,000 plays in a 12 month period doesn't get paid and won't start earning royalties for its streams until after it reaches 1,000 streams in 12 consecutive months. If it falls under that again, it stops getting paid again. We had all accepted this as a worthwhile compromise because despite not being paid at least the music was there and fans could listen and enjoy it, artists could use those numbers on the platform for their own measures of success and book shows on the back of.
So, how did Gradient and Keep Deep's artists get flagged for artificial streaming? To state the obvious, as labels, there really is no incentive to stream a song for almost 1,000 plays in a 24 hour period and then it gets a handful of plays for the next 12 months. Sometimes a song was flagged multiple months. But still, when it is well known Spotify pays around $.003 - $.005 currently, there really is no financial incentive to risk legal problems for such little reward. What about the artists? Again, there is no real incentive and even though there could be motivations that aren't financially related, we stand by our artists and have no doubt this happened for some other reason. Before Jan 1st, 2024 Spotify had been notoriously stingy about what it pays artists (about.003 cents US) many artists don't see much from that in the first place but at least it is better than nothing. Now a song does not start getting paid until it has 1,000 streams in a 12 month period. Possibly, the distributors are fine with how it has been, and is now, because it still adds up from all of their clients? I guess as a label we were fine with it because it helped keep the lights on but what it equals for the artists has almost no impact on their royalties when we were talking 20 - 30 plays on any given average track per month. And now it is nothing at all for most of them. None of this is a secret to anyone, the artists at the bottom of this reverse funnel system have mostly decided individually and socially they'll just have to accept it because they've made the concession it is better you can find their music at all and listen, even though they don't have a lot of exposure or support, even if it means they are being ripped off.
Here are some reasons we discovered in our own research into this problem about how this could have happened.
1. Artists tracks are added to botted playlists to coerce a ransom payment in order to have the track removed.
2. Artists tracks are added to botted playlists to create the illusion of legitimacy to camouflage their AI generated tracks which are usually around 1 minute in length.
3. Curators of playlists attack other playlists with hired bot farms.
4. Artists or fans of artists attack other artists' tracks as a form of weaponized gun for hire bot farms.
Regardless of the reason, the result appears to be small independent labels and artists' music being exploited while they are squeezed out of a platform altogether, all while being accused of fraud with no evidence whatsoever to justify what some might see as theft in the form of "fines". This leaves the major labels and their subsidiary labels masquerading as small independents, the only ones left on the platform if this trend continues. Maybe the way Spotify sees it, is any music with less than 1000 plays in a 12 month period is worthless, when they can just replace it with artificial generated content they and the remaining labels own or license?
We felt the choice was simple, either we keep some or all of the content on Spotify and eat the fines until we close, or pass them on to the artists. Or we put an end to it by leaving Spotify altogether and focus our efforts on another platform with better equity for all. Not all the artists' tracks were flagged for a fine but considering the unpredictable situation we'd never know how many or which ones until after they've already qualified for a fine. Since some artists tracks were not flagged but were on compilations with tracks that had been flagged and other tracks flagged were on releases with songs much more successful it meant a balanced decision had to be made for everyone. If a song had 4 plays in any given month and Spotify decided all 4 of those plays were artificial, it would be flagged as 99%+ artificial streaming and qualify for a fine. Whereas if a song had 400 plays in a period and 4 of them were artificial, it would still be flagged as artificial streaming, but it would not be fined since it would be determined to have around 1% artificial streaming. This meant music with high organic traffic could potentially negate enough artificial streaming to avoid a fine but any song with low monthly traffic could suddenly catch a fine because they do not have the organic traffic to balance the artificial streams. The botted playlists target tracks for a 24 - 48 hour period and then it could be months before the same song experiences the same numbers while other tracks are attacked instead.The “fine” by Spotify is €10, if we are fined somewhere between 1 - 6 times almost every single month it is only a matter of time before it becomes a real problem. When you add to it, the cost of doing business has tripled since 2020 there is just no room for error and eventually something has to give.
In 2014 it was unclear how Gradient Audio would be able to keep going. The music world was in a state of change and until this point a lot of our support came through people getting our releases from digital download sites like Beatport, Junodownload and many others like them. But sales were on a steady and slow decline from when we started in 2010, not because of the quality of the releases or the artists, it was something else. We have always been a very small label with a small footprint but the electronic dance music section of the music industry has always had to rely on the DJ and the DJ needs music to play at events. The entire culture depends on the many components that make up the support frame of this music we love so much. In 2015 it was clear a change was happening, streaming was the future. I felt strongly we had to somehow pivot where our music was being promoted and we had to build this source of income for the label and our artists. We leaned heavily into Spotify, after all, why wouldn't we? At that time the amount of people listening to Dubstep was starting to increase and we wanted our artists to be a part of that. It worked, Spotify had been the #1 source of revenue for our label for a long time since. But behind that seemingly positive statement is an ugly truth, there is not a lot of money in niche underground Bass music. Most labels live in the margins. Now we find ourselves leaving Spotify 10 years later because we feel we have no choice.
We apologize to all the artists and fans that are just now finding out we will no longer have our music on Spotify. We understand how disappointing this is. We are sorry there is no other option for now. We want to invite you to stream your favorite songs on our Bandcamp as much as you want from now on. If you want to add them to your collection to make them easier to stream we are grateful for that too. Over the years we have really appreciated the support from the fans of our label and the artists and this decision was not made lightly. Thank you for your understanding and your continued support.
-Jason Foster aka B1t Crunch3r
