u/Far-Training8331

Someone stole my music, my literal exact audio file, and uploaded it to Spotify and it got hundreds of thousands of listens. He used DistroKid to upload my music.

This was a song I created by myself years ago, It is all real instruments. Has my voice in it, etc.

They put it under a slightly different artist name and song title, and the beginning was slightly cut by like 2 seconds and the end was cut by a second or two also, so the exact duration doesn't match up perfectly to the actual original file, its a few seconds off.

I suspect they may have done this to try to bypass detection, it doesn't change the actual experience of the song its just a few seconds of silence mostly.

I successfully had it removed for copyright infringement after showing extensive evidence to Spotify I am the rightful creator. However, I do not use Spotify.

Now I'm thinking I should put the official song on Spotify, but can I get those plays transferred over to my now official legitimate Spotify page? Is it possible? Has it happened before? What do I have to do?

Someone stole my music, my literal exact audio file, and uploaded it to Spotify and it got hundreds of thousands of listens. He used DistroKid to upload my music.

This was a song I created by myself years ago, It is all real instruments. Has my voice in it, etc.

They put it under a slightly different artist name and song title, and the beginning was slightly cut by like 2 seconds and the end was cut by a second or two also, so the exact duration doesn't match up perfectly to the actual original file, its a few seconds off.

I suspect they may have done this to try to bypass detection, it doesn't change the actual experience of the song its just a few seconds of silence mostly.

I successfully had it removed for copyright infringement after showing extensive evidence to Spotify I am the rightful creator. However, I do not use Spotify.

Now I'm thinking I should put the official song on Spotify, but can I get those plays transferred over to my now official legitimate Spotify page? Is it possible? Has it happened before? What do I have to do?

A song I made years ago recently started spreading online out of nowhere through TikTok/social media. People have been reuploading it on Spotify, YouTube, etc under different names, and some of those uploads have gotten hundreds of thousands of plays. I've had to do DMCA takedowns of people stealing my music because they're getting so many views and revenue from it. One of the versions i took down had 400k listens before I copyright struck it off Spotify. Another upload has another couple hundred thousand. Its my same song, just an example of how much it 'blew up'.

I never put the song on Spotify myself, but once it started spreading, people began uploading it there under their own names. Some uploads appear to have been monetized, meaning people have already generated revenue from my song without permission, and I honestly don’t know whether any of that money can even be recovered at this point.

It’s also not pop or anything obviously commercial - it’s harsh/ugly niche music, which makes the sudden mass attention even stranger to me.

Before all of this, I was lucky to get 300 views on any of my songs so its a shock and I don't know how to handle it.

Now I’m suddenly being contacted by a label offering a fairly large advance/licensing deal.

The deal they mentioned is apparently a "50/50 licensing split with a recoupable advance, " and paying me a large sum of money upfront.

They want to have a phone call with me for any further information, the email address and company seems legit.

I’m trying to figure out:

• what’s normal in this situation,
• what questions I should ask,
• what red flags to look out for,
• and whether these kinds of deals are usually worth it for independent artists.

Like, what are they going to do beyond just uploading it on Spotify/Streaming for me and taking 50% of the profit? Why not just do it myself?

Not naming the song/label publicly right now for privacy reasons, but I’d appreciate general advice from people who’ve dealt with similar situations.