Search for almost any common singer's name on Spotify in India and you'll see the problem. Two or three profiles with the same name, and songs sitting on the wrong one. A Haryanvi singer finds a Bhojpuri devotional album on his page. A Punjabi artist's new single shows up under a stranger with the same spelling. Fans get confused, the algorithm gets confused, and the real artist's monthly listeners take the hit.
On October 20, Spotify published a one-year update on its work against spam and impersonation, and two parts of it matter directly to independent artists here: the Verified by Spotify badge, and a tool called Artist Profile Protection, which Spotify says it will make available to all artists by the end of this year (Spotify newsroom, "One Year In: Putting Human Artistry First on Spotify").
Here's what was announced, what the tool actually does, and what you should sort out before it reaches your account.
What Spotify said
The headline numbers are about cleanup. Spotify says it has taken more than 50 million "slop and spam" tracks out of recommendations this year, on top of more than 75 million spammy tracks removed from the platform altogether for serious or repeated rule violations. It says it looks at listener skips and feedback, upload patterns, metadata and third-party AI detection tools together, because no single signal is reliable on its own. The tactics it names are mass uploads, duplicates, SEO tricks in titles, spammy playlist networks and artificially short tracks.
Then there are the identity tools:
- Verified by Spotify. More than 300,000 artists now carry the badge, and Spotify says over 70% of them are independent. The point of the badge is to tell listeners there's a real, identifiable person behind the music.
- AI Persona badges. Profiles Spotify believes are AI-generated identities get labelled, and they're kept out of editorial and algorithmic recommendations by default.
- Artist Profile Protection. Thousands of artists have used it in beta. Spotify calls it the first proactive defence on any streaming service against the wrong music landing on an artist's page.
- The 1,000-stream threshold. A track still needs 1,000 streams in 12 months to earn royalties, a rule in place since 2024. Spotify says tracks that look highly likely to be AI-generated are 10 times more likely to fall below it.
How Artist Profile Protection works
According to Spotify's help page, once you switch it on you get an email whenever a release is delivered to Spotify with your name attached. That covers being listed as main artist, featured artist or remixer (and a few roles on classical releases).
There are two modes.
Review is the default. New releases still go live on schedule, but they show up in a Review list in Spotify for Artists. If one isn't yours, you press Remove and it comes off your profile. You have up to 28 days after the release date to do this. If you do nothing, it stays.
Block is stricter, and for now only some artists see it under Advanced settings. Here a release needs your approval before it can list you. If nobody approves it by the release date, it won't show under your name at all. That's strong protection, but it also means your own song can miss its release day if you forget to approve it.
To make Block mode workable, Spotify gives each protected artist an artist key. A distributor can include that key in the delivery, and the release arrives pre-approved, with no manual step. Some distributors have already added a field for it; DistroKid's help article explains its version.
Two limits worth knowing. Removing yourself only fixes Spotify; the same release can still sit under your name on JioSaavn, Apple Music or YouTube Music, so you still need to tell the distributor that sent it. And the tool only applies to new deliveries. Wrong songs already on your page need the old route, which is Spotify's "music mixed up with another artist" report.
Why this matters more in India than most places
Name collisions are everywhere in our scenes. Think of how many singers use "Yadav", "Raj", "Singh" or a village name with "Rangila" or "Deewana" attached. In Bhojpuri and Haryanvi music, where a busy label might put out several songs a week across many singers, one wrongly picked profile ID at upload time is all it takes. Devotional catalogues are another hotspot. The same bhajan singer can appear on releases from different labels, sometimes spelled three different ways.
Until now the fix was always after the damage: the song goes live on the wrong page, someone notices, a takedown or correction request goes back through the distributor, and you wait. With Review mode you at least get told the moment it's delivered.
It also protects you from something nastier than mix-ups. Some uploaders deliberately tag a popular artist as "featured" on unrelated tracks to borrow their listeners. Protection gives the real artist a quick way to say no.
What to do now, before it reaches you
1. Claim your Spotify for Artists profile if you haven't. You can't use any of this without access. If you're not sure how, our guide on claiming your Spotify for Artists profile walks through it. 2. Check whether it's already there. Log in at artists.spotify.com, open the menu from your avatar, and look for Artist Profile Protection. If you don't see it, you're not in the beta yet. 3. Clean up your current page. Scroll your whole discography and the "Appears on" section. Report anything that isn't yours now, while you're not dealing with a release. 4. Stick to Review mode at first. It warns you without risking your own release day. Only move to Block if you have real repeated problems and a distributor that can send your artist key. 5. Keep your artist name identical everywhere. Same spelling, same spacing, same English and Hindi versions on every release. Most mix-ups start with a slightly different spelling that makes the system create or pick the wrong profile. 6. Give your distributor your Spotify artist link, not just your name. When you upload, pick the existing profile from the link instead of typing a name and hoping. 7. Tell your collaborators. If you feature on another label's song, ask them for the release date so the delivery doesn't surprise you, and approve it quickly if you're on Block.
How we handle this at RMX
When an artist releases through RMX Music, we map the song to the exact Spotify profile link the artist gives us, and our team checks artist names and featured credits along with the audio and artwork before anything is sent out. If something still lands on the wrong page, our support team takes it up with the platform for you. If you switch on Block mode in Spotify for Artists, message us before your next upload so the release doesn't sit waiting for approval.
RMX delivers to 95+ platforms, and more than 3,000 artists and 2,200 labels already distribute with us. You keep 95% of your royalties, and the Label account is a one-time ₹4,500 for life with unlimited releases and artists.
If you want your next song to go out under the right name from day one, create your RMX account here.