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Hey, this is Matthew Ricks and today on the Music
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Business newsletter, we got an email from a manager who
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wants to know is it worth to pay to pitch
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your songs to playlist? But before we get into that,
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I ask that you like and subscribe and leave a comment.
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If you agree with me, or if you disagree with me,
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leave a comment. Please share this video with your friends
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who are also in the music industry. And if you
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have a question on the music industry that you want
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me to answer, all you gotta do is go to
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Matthewricks dot com, click submit your question, give me as
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many details as possible, and we'll answer it here on
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the channel. I don't need you to subscribe, to become
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a member, to buy a book, to book a private
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coaching session. Actually I don't have any of that stuff available.
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You just got to go to Matthew Ricks dot com
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and click submit your question, and make sure to give
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me as many details as possible. So let's dive into
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today's email. He says, Hey, Matthew, my name's Bob. We
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got a lot of bobs. He says, I manage a
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pop artist who's in her late thirties. She's incredibly talented,
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amazing voice, solid catalog, and a great image. You know,
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this guy's a manager, by the way he described all
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of that. That is pure gas from a manager, and
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I'm here for all of it. He goes on. We've
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been building things organically for a while now, and recently
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a few different promotional companies have reached out to me
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through Instagram. I'm gonna buy a red flag. I Am
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actually gonna buy a red flag and then we can
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just wave it with certain things. A few different promotional
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companies have reached out to you through Instagram. Okay, let's
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continue the email for now. He says. These companies are
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claiming that they can get her music placed on major
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Spotify playlist booster streams through curated influencer networks. It's a
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curated influencer networks. How come I haven't been invited to that?
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How come I don't know about it? Let's continue, he says.
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Some of them even send screenshots showing songs they've allegedly
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placed on a big playlist. So let's stop right there. Okay,
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First off, a few different promotional companies have reached out
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to you through pay through Instagram for playlist promotions. I'm
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gonna be honest with you, I don't I know of
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a lot of promotional companies in the music industry. I
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don't know a lot of them that are actually legit.
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But the people I do know who like massively hustle
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for work who are legit in the music industry. There's
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some guys in the music industry that are incredibly like
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hustler mindset for what they do. They do not conduct
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their business on Instagram. When I'm looking for artists to
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em like to interview, I will reach out to them
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on Instagram, just because sometimes it's quicker than a manager.
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But I'm not charging money for interviews. I do it
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because I like their music and I want to give
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them some free promotion. But I don't know a lot
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of companies that are going to I don't even know
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like producers. If they find an artist, they're not really
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conducting business over Instagram. They might start to handshake, here's
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my number or whatever, but they're not really conducting a
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whole lot of business and talking finances or whatever. I
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don't know if that's happening here, but I'm just kind
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of throwing that out there. He said. They're claiming that
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they can get her music placed on major Spotify playlists. No,
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they can't and boost her boost her streams through curated
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influencer networks. Once again, I don't know what a curated
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influencer network is. It must I guess it means that
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they have a network of Spotify playlist influencers. You guys
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keep throwing me. You guys get some weird terms of stuff,
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and I'm like, I've never heard of that before. And
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then some of them sent you screenshots showing songs they've
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allegedly placed on big playlist. So do they show you,
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you know, a Drake's in a playlist? And was like,
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that's our work because anybody can do that. Are they
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showing you a contract or they showed you conversations, but
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screenshots showing you songs they've allegedly placed on big playlist.
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I mean, you know, oh yeah, here, look I work
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with Kendrick and I got a song on this playlist.
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Like it's yeah, that's There's not a lot of social
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proof right there that you're legit. Let's continue with the email.
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He says these companies are asking anywhere from three hundred
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up to fifteen hundred dollars per campaign. Three hundred to
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fifteen hundred dollars per campaign, and that's depending on how
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many playlists we want to be pitched to. See. This
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is where the scam is, and this scam is an
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actually updated version of what the ANR scam was about
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ten years ago. The NR scam ten years ago was
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you'd have these guys who claimed that they were independent consultants,
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but they were independent consultants for you, Universal, Sony, and
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Warner Brothers all at the same time. Not to mention,
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they didn't realize that these major labels have non compete
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clauses and you can't go work for your competitor doing
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the exact same job at the same time. But they
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were they were charging some of them were charging up
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to five thousand dollars to quote unquote picture song to
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these labels. There was one guy and I called him
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out on Twitter like ten years ago, and it got
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so bad that like my team and I were worried
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that he was gonna like show up in an event.
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But he claimed to be an ANAR director and a
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producer Grammy Award winning producer, but he was an an
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R director for Universal Music and he was getting rap
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artists for fifteen thousand dollars a song, and nobody ever
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got signed. But then because he had so many like
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fake body accounts, and he had so many people who
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wanted to work with him but couldn't afford it, So
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they were kind of like his flying monkeys, right that
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when you'd have artists that got scammed by this guy,
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he would have these flying monkeys. They would destroy these
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artists who question anything online about him. And I called
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them out one time on Instagram and I'm like, you
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don't work for Universal, why are you telling people you do?
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And he had his little flying monkeys trying to come
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after me, but I didn't really care because I was
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more worried about like personal safety of people who came
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to our events. But he tried to like call me
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out and say I didn't work for the label that
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I did at the time, and I mean, but I did.
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So it was just him lashing out that somebody was
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telling him, like, I know you're running a scam. That
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was the an R scam back in the day. The
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new scam in the music industry is the playlist pitching scam.
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And this is how the playlist pitching scam goes on you,
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the artists. So this year. You can pay three hundred
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to fifteen hundred dollars depending on how many playlists you want.
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You want to pitch too. And so what they'll do
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is is they'll say, we pitched you a fifty top
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spot playlist. They didn't because they don't know how to
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do it. Because I actually am good friends with one
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of the people who curates a certain genre of music
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for Spotify, and I know what their procedure is. I
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know what they do to make those playlists right. It's
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never about some random fool just like pitching them a
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bunch of artists. It's it's got a lot to do
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with algorithm. It's got a lot to do with your data.
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It's got a lot to do with your traffic. It's
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got a lot to do sonically EQ wise as well.
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But here they are sending you, so they'll pitch you
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to they'll pitch you to fifty playlist and then the
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top ones won't take you. They'll say like, oh, they're
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really interested, but just not right now. Maybe we should
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try again in three six months, so you can pay
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them again for another campaign. But then you'll get on
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some random playlist that's got a bunch of other random
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artists that probably has like seventy thousand and subscribers, but
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they're all fake. And then they've met their obligations. They
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pitched you quote unquote, and they got you on a playlist,
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and so you'll pay them fifteen hundred dollars and they
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did nothing. But let's continue the email. They all promise real,
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organic growth. They're not real or organic and say it's
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not bots or fake streams. It's all bots and it's
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all fake streams. And he continues, but honestly, I've heard
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that line before. Yes, very good. There's a ton of
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we'll do your Instagram promotions and get you. You know,
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they guarantee you. They're so accurate that you pay them
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to handle your Instagram promotions, your YouTube promotions. They guarantee
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you like, we're gonna get you ten thousand followers, and
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you always get exactly ten thousand followers. Why because it's
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all fake bought accounts. But let's continue, he says, But
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I've heard that line before. That's what brings me to
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my question, is it ever actually worth paying for playlist placement?
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You will have at times certain I'm not going to
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say which ones, but certain streaming companies do playlists their
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own version of playlist. Right, they got millions and millions
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of followers, and it is a big deal to get
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on that playlist. It is a big deal. They do
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charge record labels distribution companies money for that placement. You
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cannot get invited to pay them. They come to you
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and say, we want to add this artist to this playlist.
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Here's the price tag, and it's the new It is
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the new promotion. It's a way that streaming services are.
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They're also making extra money that way from the labels,
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but that is from whatever streaming service I'm talking about.
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That is from them reaching out to you. These promotional
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companies doing this. It's not worth it's not worth a penny.
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You give them a penny, that's too much money because
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you're not gonna get anything for it. You're gonna get
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a bunch of fake plays and then two three months
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later going to get a message. Or if you're with
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tune Core or District Kid, if you're with one of
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the other bigger ones, the ones that are a little
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bit harder to get your music distributed through, you're going
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to get an email from Spotify saying we have detected
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fake plays. We have deducted this amount of plays from
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your statement, and then you will lose that money. But
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also what it does. The harm here is is that
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if you're with Distro, Kid, Tune, Core, CD Baby, one
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of those guys, you could possibly lose your entire deal
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with them, like they'll pull they'll they'll pull your music
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and lock your money out for fraud because it technically
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is if you're with more, if you're like with A
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one where it's like you get invited and whatever, then
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you get a check against you and if you continue
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doing it, then Spotify will take your music down, but
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you still lose money. There is then an awkward conversation
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you have to have with distribution. It's it's just it's
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not it's not any good. So is it worth paying
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for UH playlist placement? Not in these such now and
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your artist is just realistically, your artist is nowhere near
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having a streaming service reach out to you and say
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pay us this much and they can be on our
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top playlist. Thing, so it is not worth it. The
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email continues. I understand marketing costs money and I'm not
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expecting overnight success, but I don't want to throw away
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my artist budget on smoking mirrors. I don't know who
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you are, and I don't know who this artist is,
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but you are actually a pretty intelligent manager. And I'll
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say a lot about a lot of managers. Yeah, you
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would be throwing away your artist budget. And I think
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that you also have to realize in your situation that
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your artist budget's probably coming from her job or her
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husband's job, since she's an artist, a woman in her
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late thirties, so this is probably coming from her job,
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her husband's job, family budget, whatever. And you're gonna take
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that money and you're gonna blow it on a scam,
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on fraud. So good for you of being mindful about that.
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That actually shows that you actually care, because some managers
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would be so desperate to have any movement for their
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artists that they would put away their better judgments. I
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got Jones, you know, playlist and eighty thousand people. And
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then when you find out it's a scam, the artist
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that you're working with gets the email that like, hey,
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we're pulling your music from our distro kid account or
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you know, we're deducting this many plays, and you got
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to go back and be like, I didn't properly vet this.
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I'm sorry. I suck as a manager like it's not
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a good look. But the email continues, he says, I
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also don't want to miss out on an opportunity if
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there's a legitimate way to boost visibility. This isn't it.
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There are some really good playlists out there that guys
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have created because they just love the songs. They love music.
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Maybe they do a YouTube channel or Twitch channel and
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they just do their own playlist. You can't pitch to them.
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They just find stuff, they like it, they throw it
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in there. That's because they love the music or they
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love the song they heard. I understand you don't want
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to miss out in a legitimate way to boost visibility,
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but this isn't legit and it's not going to boost visibility.
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It's it is like you put smoke in mirrors. As
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email continues, We're doing all the right things. We're releasing consistently,
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building a fan base on social media, and investing in content.
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I'd like to know how you're investing in content. Are