Hey friends,

I’ve been dealing with a frustrating situation over the past week. Someone has submitted a false claim to Spotify that I violated their intellectual property rights with my album Darkmatter and specifically the song Isolation.

I noticed when my streaming stats started dropping on Spotify. On that note, over 75% of listens seem to be coming from Isolation 😅. I get it - it’s good - but I’ve got other songs as well, haha. I guess you’ll have to listen to those while I work on restoring Darkmatter to Spotify.

Anyway, I started by initiating a support case with my aggregator / distributor. They forwarded me an email they had received from Spotify with an intellectual properties claim and told me I needed to get in contact with the claimant and ask them to retract their claim, then resolve it directly with Spotify.

I reached out to the claimant, and they never responded. I suspect they provided a fake email address when they submitted their claim to Spotify. I mean, @legislator.com is not a real email domain, right? Seems pretty sus to me.

So then I started a support chat with Spotify. They told me to resolve the issue with my distributor. Since then, I e been running back and forth between my distributor and Spotify, and neither of them are taking ownership.

I just got off of another support chat with Spotify this morning. I told them my distributor is not helping and that Spotify needs to do something to resolve the situation. They told me they’d redirect the case to their escalation team and that I’ll hear from them in a couple of days.

Simultaneously, I discovered that another artist on Spotify has uploaded an identical copy of Isolation and is profiting from it while it’s currently unavailable on my Spotify profile. I have submitted an intellectual property claim against them, and it has been taken down while they review the case.

This whole situation has been frustrating. Thanks for your support during this time. I’m working to get it resolved, so hang in there and be patient, and I am hopeful that I can restore my album to Spotify. If it comes down to it, I’ll get legal help, but I’d prefer not to spend that kind of 💸 if I can resolve it on my own. Wish me luck!

NightHawk22

P.S. Please only trust profile links listed on my Newgrounds profile (Spotify, Facebook, YouTube, Reddit, etc.). Let me know if you have any questions about any of my profiles.