Sound of Scenesat Vol 7 delisted
category: music [glöplog]
So it appears that The Sound of Scenesat Vol 7 has been removed from most music streaming sites. What happened?
It's still available on Bandcamp and not intentionally taken down.
Gah. Again. This is _SUCH_ a pain. A week or so ago I got notified that 10-15 tracks from the other volumes got a warning for suspected "artificial streaming" as they call it. If it would continue, they'd remove the volumes involved. However, that was from another broker than the one we've used for SoS7. I haven't even been notified at all that the same suspicions should have happened for this volume, so it feels very weird that it should be taken down like this.
This shows the extremely flawed way of how today's streaming works. They can take a release down without actually showing any details whatsoever of what's been going on. And once a release is taken down, you can't put it back up again without resubmitting it again as a whole. And that is a painful process, especially when it comes to compilations like this. The actual effective working time of putting SoS7 up via RouteNote (the broker I used) was 6 hours. And that is 6 hours of me and the browser working, just uploading and tagging it all, as well as arranging licenses for the few remixes that was on the compilation as well. That was also the second time I submitted it, because it had been taken down once before, also for artificial streaming.
Not only does it cost money to put them online like this, but it really costs a HUGE amount of time to do so. We don't really make any money from this streaming either, just enough to cover the yearly costs of keeping them there, so they really are there as a service to anyone who wants to listen to them that way. Honestly, if they are removed, I'm not sure I can be arsed to put them back up there again.
The only valid reason I can see that the streaming has increased would be that people have found the compilations after hearing the music on the Revision live stream, but I doubt that would render SO many more streams so it would make a dent that could be interpreted as cheating.
Now, if there is someone who has tried to "help" us by setting up some sort of fake streaming to increase the amount of plays of some of the tracks, then please stop this at once. Since the outlets have very clunky ways of detecting these things and rather judge us guilty than innocent, the only thing that will happen is that the compilations are removed and makes a mess of things.
I'll send a question to RouteNote to see if we actually have been removed (since it doesn't show as such in their system) or not and I am still hoping that we don't get the other volumes removed after the warning we got from TuneCore. The latter is still to be seen, though...
As Byproduct mentioned, all albums are still available on Bandcamp and will stay there for as long as possible.
*sigh* We just can't have nice things, right...?
This shows the extremely flawed way of how today's streaming works. They can take a release down without actually showing any details whatsoever of what's been going on. And once a release is taken down, you can't put it back up again without resubmitting it again as a whole. And that is a painful process, especially when it comes to compilations like this. The actual effective working time of putting SoS7 up via RouteNote (the broker I used) was 6 hours. And that is 6 hours of me and the browser working, just uploading and tagging it all, as well as arranging licenses for the few remixes that was on the compilation as well. That was also the second time I submitted it, because it had been taken down once before, also for artificial streaming.
Not only does it cost money to put them online like this, but it really costs a HUGE amount of time to do so. We don't really make any money from this streaming either, just enough to cover the yearly costs of keeping them there, so they really are there as a service to anyone who wants to listen to them that way. Honestly, if they are removed, I'm not sure I can be arsed to put them back up there again.
The only valid reason I can see that the streaming has increased would be that people have found the compilations after hearing the music on the Revision live stream, but I doubt that would render SO many more streams so it would make a dent that could be interpreted as cheating.
Now, if there is someone who has tried to "help" us by setting up some sort of fake streaming to increase the amount of plays of some of the tracks, then please stop this at once. Since the outlets have very clunky ways of detecting these things and rather judge us guilty than innocent, the only thing that will happen is that the compilations are removed and makes a mess of things.
I'll send a question to RouteNote to see if we actually have been removed (since it doesn't show as such in their system) or not and I am still hoping that we don't get the other volumes removed after the warning we got from TuneCore. The latter is still to be seen, though...
As Byproduct mentioned, all albums are still available on Bandcamp and will stay there for as long as possible.
*sigh* We just can't have nice things, right...?
yeah, been having to deal with same shit on random enough records releases, spotify triggers artificial streaming notifications out of their blackbox detection algorithm with no way to appeal and causes the distribution channel to remove the release entirely (even from being available in other platforms in some cases it seems).
i'm happy spotify is finally doing something against the streaming click farms nonsense but a big shame that in the process it's setting off a false positives without recourse open season fuckery.
even if you ask to take down your releases from there, your account (and all it's releases) will still be flagged and supposedly not allowed on another service. or so i been told, haven't tried it out yet.
thought they couldn't make streaming music systems any worse, but apparently they managed :D
i'm happy spotify is finally doing something against the streaming click farms nonsense but a big shame that in the process it's setting off a false positives without recourse open season fuckery.
even if you ask to take down your releases from there, your account (and all it's releases) will still be flagged and supposedly not allowed on another service. or so i been told, haven't tried it out yet.
thought they couldn't make streaming music systems any worse, but apparently they managed :D
Yo, what if we keep it real and say the dopest way to vibe to demoscene tunes is hit up modarchive or scoop them torrents, ya feel me?
@la_mettrie: So in other words you're dissing >97% of these tracks from being demoscene tunes... Hmm, sounds rough against all artists using DAWs and such, then... And God forbid if you've made a SID! Oh, teh horror! :P
All I wanted was an easy way to scrobble my scene tunes :(
@Ziphoid: I really appreciate your effort and the SoS compilations, but la_mettrie has a point, too.
Hm, wasn´t technology intended to make things EASIER and services intended to SERVE the customer?
Hm, wasn´t technology intended to make things EASIER and services intended to SERVE the customer?
@T$: Well, since I'm now "owning" ModArchive as well, I of course agree that it should be used more, so I somewhat agree with the idea. ;) Especially when we get the new version going properly. I just don't want to say "do this INSTEAD", but more "do this TOO". But, I think the major problem when it comes to technology is when people find that they can and want to earn the most amount of money in any way possible. Judging by all of the distribution systems I've seen when dealing with these compilations, it's pretty obvious that noone has given practicality and usability much thought at all, because if they would, things would have been SO much easier. :/
I mean, some of the ways things work are just plain dumb. For instance, when I first submitted SoS7 for distribution, I was using the same distributor as for the first six volumes. After wrestling countless hours with their system, adhering to all their quirks and limitations, I managed to pay the $50 it costed and sent it away. Less that 24h after the submission, it got rejected. The reason for this was "Sorry, your album may only contain music of a maximum length of 2.5 hours". So, since I had uploaded all tracks and they had all the data surrounding them, how hard could it be to show that limit BEFORE I got to submit it to them? Well, I basically got a generic note back saying that if I wanted to submit it, I had to remove 4 hours of music and then resubmit and pay again. Did I get any refund of those $50 that the first submission costed? Of course not. They kept that as a "handling fee". So no, usability is NOT in the scope and neither do they live by the rule "the customer is always right", sadly...
I mean, some of the ways things work are just plain dumb. For instance, when I first submitted SoS7 for distribution, I was using the same distributor as for the first six volumes. After wrestling countless hours with their system, adhering to all their quirks and limitations, I managed to pay the $50 it costed and sent it away. Less that 24h after the submission, it got rejected. The reason for this was "Sorry, your album may only contain music of a maximum length of 2.5 hours". So, since I had uploaded all tracks and they had all the data surrounding them, how hard could it be to show that limit BEFORE I got to submit it to them? Well, I basically got a generic note back saying that if I wanted to submit it, I had to remove 4 hours of music and then resubmit and pay again. Did I get any refund of those $50 that the first submission costed? Of course not. They kept that as a "handling fee". So no, usability is NOT in the scope and neither do they live by the rule "the customer is always right", sadly...
Ouch. That´s not just lack of usability, it is commercial grade scam.
Good that there is also the possibility to grab the tracks from https://scenesat.com/production/13
Good that there is also the possibility to grab the tracks from https://scenesat.com/production/13
You can also always grab them as lossless at our Bandcamp page. Of course for free, unless you want to help us out with some change. :)
Also, because of all this hassle, I've finally been arsed to fix the all-in-one playlist on the web player, after procrastinating for way too long with it... :) 41.5 hours of music in one big bundle...
Sweet!
I just now got it confirmed from RouteNote that SoS7 was removed due to "suspicions of artificial streaming". The interesting bit is that it's still listed at "published and active" in their system. Also, they really seem to not bother to present any sort of proof of this alleged streaming. So, I wrote a wall of text to them, expressing my frustration... I guess it's completely futile, but at least I could get that off my chest.
So, if anyone out there felt that they wanted to "help us" by generating artificial streams - f**k you very much. It sure helped. Not.
I'm not sure I can be arsed to resubmit the compilation again, but it's yet to be seen.
Also, it looks like at least 4 more of the previous compilations might also be delisted since I got warned (yay, at least something before they were just pulled away) by TuneCore about it, but hopefully they'll prevail... If that happens, it'll all be a big mess...
So, if anyone out there felt that they wanted to "help us" by generating artificial streams - f**k you very much. It sure helped. Not.
I'm not sure I can be arsed to resubmit the compilation again, but it's yet to be seen.
Also, it looks like at least 4 more of the previous compilations might also be delisted since I got warned (yay, at least something before they were just pulled away) by TuneCore about it, but hopefully they'll prevail... If that happens, it'll all be a big mess...
I always hated those streaming services, they kick artists and publishers with their feet and have zero respect for the quality content they're dealing with. If it works, then fine. If it does not, then don't expect any useful help from them whatsoever. Big exception here was and still is Bandcamp, of course. And for a while I was worried they'd fold when they were sold a while back, luckily they did not.
I get that Spotify & Co. have a much wider audience than BC, but personally I'm not fussed about whether my tunes are available there or not. If it helps with funding and keeping SceneSat servers alive, however, then it of course makes sense to keep them running on there.
I get that Spotify & Co. have a much wider audience than BC, but personally I'm not fussed about whether my tunes are available there or not. If it helps with funding and keeping SceneSat servers alive, however, then it of course makes sense to keep them running on there.
them = the albums, I meant
the ridiculous thing about these artificial streaming takedowns is that it's not even on albums that are doing anything viral in terms of streaming. the ones i got taken down at enough records had similar numbers to everything else on the catalogue. just feels completely arbitrary. 5-10 years ago they were officially recommending all the artists to try to get their tracks into as many spotify playlists as possible. now if someone adds your track to a suspicous playlist instead of taking down the playlist they take down the whole release. :D it's just stupidity at play, would not be surprised if this is blackbox pattern recognition without people manually confirming things before pulling the plug on releases. music streaming leading the dystopian future for artists narrative. :D
Well, having them on Spotify et al is just for the easiness and reach, tbh. We really only make enough per year to keep them on there, so I could gladly remove all claims to any earnings as long as the music stays up there. Bandcamp is the place where it actually makes a difference and where we're earning money to help fund running SceneSat.
Also, I've now bounced more messages to RouteNote and got directed to Spotify... ...who directed me between three different departments before bouncing me back to RouteNote... So, that particular path is completely futile...
Besides, if people just could get their act together and make actual working submission systems with a DROP of usability I'd be way happier... I mean, it's literally not rocket science.
If it was possible to submit the compilations by myself to the biggest players such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Tidal and handle that somewhat easily, I'd definitely go that path. But, since they don't want to have to deal with small players like us by themselves, they force everyone to use aggregators like TuneCore and RouteNote instead...
Also, I've now bounced more messages to RouteNote and got directed to Spotify... ...who directed me between three different departments before bouncing me back to RouteNote... So, that particular path is completely futile...
Besides, if people just could get their act together and make actual working submission systems with a DROP of usability I'd be way happier... I mean, it's literally not rocket science.
If it was possible to submit the compilations by myself to the biggest players such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Tidal and handle that somewhat easily, I'd definitely go that path. But, since they don't want to have to deal with small players like us by themselves, they force everyone to use aggregators like TuneCore and RouteNote instead...
Oh, and to add to ps' comment there: I've finally been arsed to submit a request to take a label ownership of the compilations (I've never really gotten that Spotify for Artists thing working before) which means that I'll get to see the streaming numbers way sooner than today and might even be able to spot if anything like this will happen again... Because how it is now is that I've not received ANY data about anything. Just having the volume removed. The only reason I noticed was because of this thread.