does anybody knows what is the agreement between Imusician as a distributor and Spotify?
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Hello @MattiaBalboni,
Is there anything in particular you are curious about?
If you are inquiring about the exclusivity you can find the answer in our Terms and Conditions, section “Digital distribution”, chapter “Exclusivity & transferability”.
I was hoping to get answers or hints by other users…
actually i spent one month trying to get answers from Imusician, i’m followed via mail but still can’t get anwers that make some sense.
the “red spark” was that Spotify stats are WAY HIGHER than Imusician stats, and this is strange.
SPotify says that the numbers i see from spotify are the same that they send to the distributor (i asked directly) but the person who is following me said that there is a “filter” that Imusician does not know.
i think this is impossible: Imusician and spotify are two companies, they have an agreement…it’s not possible that some part of the agreement are not known by both of the companies…
more than that i don’t understand what is Imusician doing with me , now…i sent, as requested, many times the screenshot of specific releases on spotify so that Imusician could compare them, i made an excel file and sent it, and still i got answered “sorry, our tech staff is working on it”.
first mail was sent one month ago, now we are about a 17 or 18 mail conversation with Imusician.
i just want to know what is going on, cause right now what i can see is that Imusician states less (LOT LESS: we go from 20% to…well last time i checked dai 3 march was 0 streams on imusician…but about 100 on spotify…) streams than the reality. this makes me think that when we go to the payment i get the same results…it’s a lack of transparency that i would have never immagined from Imusician, and i’m out of patience.
I’m an amplify+ user, so Imusician got my money…
If i don’t get answers that make some logical sense i’m leaving this company.
PS: i know i’m not a successful asset for imusician and that i can be a pain in the a$$ . but io’m a costumer, you got my money, we don’t need to be friends…we atre working toghether…
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Exactly,
I promise I’ll do my best to answer your doubts once and for all.
I’m already in touch with Juan, we are checking your screenshots looking for discrepancies with the numbers received from Spotify, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
the person i’m talking to via mail is from your staff and stated multiple times that spotify hase a filtering mode that is unknow by imusician (in italian: “un sistema a noi ignoto”). Why did she write it multiple times, even today she just answered a mail sayin this?
Ok. first thing: next time say it clearly: “we have a problem, you are not the only one, we are on it”. i received various answers that were saying, somewthing like “there is no problem, you are wrong, it’s just a chronological problem…” and stuff like that. that made me feel like a person that is fooled around.
third: things are getting WORSE. the more i grow (i’m in some editor playlist now…Yeppa!) the worse it is.
fouth: lack of clarity + internet business +lack of transparency+ illogical answers (or false answers) = the idea of being in a no good situation.
i’m being diplomatic but i think you can understand what i mean
that is why i’m a little rough…
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to be clear.
on monday i had another e-mail exchange with Imusician and the answer was mechanical: “we are checking with our tech…”
i said myself: “on next monday it’s one month since we started this thing, and i feel really bad for the situation. i wait until monday next week and then i go away from Imusician”.
i will wait more time, ok.
i Hope you understand what i’m trying to say, i hope you understand what i’m affraid of.
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Hi @MattiaBalboni, On April 3 I had the same issue as you in March, it showed 0 streams for a long time, then it began to rise, now it shows 65. So I think there is a kind of time delay with the streams coming from the streaming platforms (and it is not only spotify as there are streams on that day from deezer and amazon music for sure and maybe others too) Hopefully iMusician can dig deeper into that! my very best to you and the iMusician Team, Andi
a certain delay …ok. but it always happends, it’s been going on for months, the number is always lower…i want to know why. if spotify gives them the right number from the dashboard (that’s what spotify does, as it is what spotify told me in chat) there is no way they can mistake.
i want to know why, cause i’m having …let’s say…trust issues. like nick fury, but not that bad…
example: 30 march is 79 on IM and 153 on Spotify. 3 april is now 104, was 0 2 days ago, but spotify says 114.
i could go on for days like this…I don’t want to be there checking everything everyday, it’s not my job…it’s Imusician’s job.
what makes me feel bad is: if same things happends to money i have no way to check it. TRUST and TRANSPARENCY are the core of this business. not good if i check the only thing i can check and find this difference. really, NOT feeling good about it.
i wait till middle may. that means a little less than one more month… but i want REAL answers…
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Hi there, I’m actually sad to read about your situation because last September I finally realized that some things were strange about the stats too. When I asked about it by email, I got a long answer trying to explain why there was such a difference EVERYTIME I received the royalties stats, that this wasn’t iMusician’s fault but the stores themselves, since they each had their own way of communicating about the stats and other stuff.
In short: the woman who answered me “drowned the fish” (don’t know if that expression exists in English? maybe not, “noyé le poisson” in French) and never clarified anything. I immediately understood that it was pointless to try and get another answer from iMusician about this, so I gave up, even though I’m far from satisfied.
There are months where some ligns say “0 stream” but count a revenue, twice we had revenue counted for tracks that weren’t even released yet (i.e. a track released in July but already appeared on the June revenue report??), things like that.
If you actually get to the bottom of this, I would love to hear it. You would be doing a great service to a lot of artists here!
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ok, so i’m not the only one
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first:
about the “filter”. i didn’t talk about it, Melani did (your colleague). if you discover now about this filter why did melani know about its existance , even if it’s not spotify filter but, actually, an Imusician filter, and even if she said she had no idea how it operated?
second:
This answer totally contradicts Spotify answers.
Spotify says you are given the same stats that appears in the dashboard. you say it is not so.
i can give you the scrteenshot of those conversations:
There are 4 possibilities:
1-spotify is wrong
2-imusician is wrong
3-spotify is lying
4-Imusician is lying
wich one should I pick?
PS: i quote: We took the decision to not include non-monetised streams as we felt that they were potentially “worthless” to musicians (e.g. they aren’t monetised so why do artists care etc.) However, we may review this decision in the future if it is an issue for our Artists.
wich contradicts the following quote: Trends report has zero impact on the payouts / earnings
if trends are only monetized streams , it’s clear they impact on payout (even if with spotify there is no direct “1stream=xmoney” .
you may think thats just a “technicality” but the point is that I know that i’m not using fake streams, so when i see “there are less streams because probably some are fraud” i get…uncofortable.
seems like the only choice I have is to trust Imusician or go away.
not sure what i’m going to choose, there are still many things that are unclear about Imusician behaviour with this topic.
Trust is a delicate and fragile thing.
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my trend are incorrect also after 01-04.
just to be clear.
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i’m checking with spotify. they say, AGAIN, you receive ONE set of stats.
the “monetized / not monetized” thing is about royalties, not stats.
now i’m trying to get the royalties data, wich is hard but not impossible.
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Hello @MattiaBalboni and thanks for helping us on this topic.
It is important to us that we can provide a transparent experience when reporting on trends.
To understand and identify potential issues I would kindly ask you to share an ISRC with me privately and tell me how many streams you observe on spotify for artists for three days separately (you choose the day, within the past 90 days - please not for the 31st of March or 1st of April).
This would be of great help as we can build a case and challenge the data received if we are able to identify an issue.
Thanks a lot!
i think this is the third time i do it, but probably not in pubblic…31-march and 1st april are the worst, i have something like 100 streams less…but i understand: we have to wait to solve that issue.
1-i don’t undertstand: why 1 single day with multiple relevations?
2-i don’t understand : why only one release?
3- spotify does not understand why you talk about monetized and non monetized when talking about stats. But this is what i’m checking with them.
apologies for asking the same question you probably have answered multiple times.
Regarding 2023-03-31 and 2023-04-01, we are actively working on properly re-importing this data.
I currently have no answers about point 1 and 2 as we will have to follow up on this from our end. Concrete examples will help our case.
Regarding point 3: “accountable” streams
To shed some light on the monetizable or also known as accountable trait of a stream. That basically just signifies if a play is shorter than 30 seconds. We provide visibility about this via the Skip rate indicator.
Meaning if you have a track with 1 stream and a skip rate of 50% you have 1 stream which is not being accounted for.
We decided to graph the streams that have the opportunity to be monetized (regardless of any additional logic) and use the skip rate to highlight the difference.
I understand that we could also graph all streams edit: (incl. partial streams) and highlight the skip rate in which case you would have to subtract from the plotted numbers.
Neither is right or wrong. Perhaps having some more clarity and information on the skip rate would make this more understandable.
Happy to investigate some of the mismatches you observed and figure stuff out. It’s helpful to get insights into what Spotify reports on spotify for artists, I do agree that we should end up with the same numbers and we will do everything possible from our side to get there. Ultimately we do have to rely on the data that is provided to us.
Thank you for your patience and help!
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Greetings team,
I just realized the number of plays displayed on imusician analytics does not match Spotify for artists info (without even considering other platforms). Could you please take a look at it? Thank you!
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Hi Guys.
i0ve been really busy in the lastr 10 days, lot of work (i’m a sound engineer, and biennale venice is about to start…you can immagine how much crazy is working now).
i see a lot of confusion: some of the post by the Imusician staff have been edited , deleting parts (with the line on the words), still some things do not work with math…i mean: if you take the statements you should have an opposite stats problem, or so it seems. I have seen multiple answers, via mail or via forum, some of them contradictory, come of them corrected after the answer.
two quick thoughts:
1- if you, Imusician, have such a confusion in yourself…you can immagine how difficoult it’s for us.
the point (thats what is…making me angry, to be clear) is that this is not a friends
comunity, we are not friends that enjoy staying toghether and somebody takes care of the business because he/she is a nice person. Imusician is a company, and we, users, pay Imusician.
So, when i say " it’s difficoult for us" it’s a very bad thing: it shouldn’t be so, you are professionals and we are costumers.
2-situation is fairly diffused. that means trhere is a system problem (technical? internal )
3-you are so confused that if you put together the 20 mails exchange i had plus this Imusician thread you really don’t understand anything. cause every week something changes, and you (as imusician staff, generally…i’m not referring to any specific person…i don’t want to put the blame on anybody.) changed answers so many times that i can’t read an answer and say “Wok, so this is it…”, cause maybe will have different answers in a few days.
4- the only clear thing is tha stats problem you have with Spotify. MY FEAR is that that problem and that confusion we have experienced in imusician can reflect pour earnings. because, again, we are not a group of friends, it’s a business.
now, i know that you will say : “trust us, there are no problem with the money”.
but how can i know it ? a leap of faith?
that is why i ask imusician two things: 1- to pubblish and be clear about the agreement that this company has with other companies, expecially spotify. DON’T say “we do not knwo it”, like your colleague did: this comapny has agreement with other companies, the agreement is an official document, so there is no way that imusician does not knwo the terms. if you cannot go pubblic, for privacy policy with the other company, SAY IT. it’s legal, no problem. but say it.
2- i’m considering leaving Imusician, because i’m affraid of the confusion you have shown. i’m affraid it can affect the services you want to provide and the earnings i want to have. the only thing i’m sure is the money i paid. my request is: at least, if i leave you, give me back the money i paid for the amplify plus.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaand…i’d like to have final and clear answers on those issues.
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I dont have any idea Mattia