Your distributor removed your music: what to do, in order

Your release is gone from Spotify. Or the whole dashboard is locked and there's a termination email in your inbox that doesn't say why. It feels like the catalog is gone. It almost never is. The recordings are yours, the identifiers on them keep working and there is a standard route back onto stores. What matters now is doing things in the right order and avoiding the panicked move that makes a flag worse.

Why distributors take music down

Four causes cover nearly every case.

• Artificial-streaming flags. Spotify defines artificial streams as plays that don't reflect genuine listening, and it acts on them: royalties on confirmed artificial streams are withheld, public numbers are corrected and in repeated or egregious cases Spotify reserves the right to remove the content itself. It also charges labels and distributors a per-track penalty when flagrant artificial streaming is detected. That penalty is why distributors move fast and often automatically, taking down tracks or terminating whole accounts before a human has looked at yours.
• Rights disputes. Someone claimed your release infringes theirs: a sample, an uncleared cover, an artist-name collision or sometimes a fraudulent claim aimed at you. Stores usually suspend first and sort it out later.
• Store content policy. Metadata rules (misleading titles, keyword stuffing, wrong artist mapping), cover-art rules or content rules. These are usually track-level and fixable, and the notice says which rule applies.
• Account termination. Distributor terms commonly allow termination at the distributor's discretion. When accounts are closed in enforcement sweeps, entire catalogs come down at once, including releases nobody ever complained about.

First: work out who acted

Everything downstream depends on this, so establish it before you write to anyone. If one track vanished from one store while your distributor dashboard still shows it as delivered, the store acted. The dispute runs through the store, via your distributor. If every store dropped the release at once, or you can't sign in at all, the distributor acted. A store-level removal usually names a policy; a distributor-level one is often just a terms clause. You appeal to whoever pulled the trigger, and the written reason (below) tells you which fight you're in.

The triage steps, in order

1. Save everything, now. Access can disappear with the next enforcement pass. Download royalty statements, catalog exports, release metadata (ISRCs, UPCs, release dates, splits), your streaming stats and every email. Screenshots count when exports aren't available.
2. Get the reason in writing. The next section lists what to ask for. Use email, not support chat, because you are building a record.
3. Stop the machine that caused it. If any third-party promotion is running (playlist placement services, guaranteed-streams offers, "organic growth" subscriptions), cancel it today. If a flag was wrong, continuing the behavior that triggered it destroys your appeal.
4. Do not reupload in a panic. Pushing the same tracks through a new account or a new distributor under fresh codes, while a fraud flag is open, is what fraud looks like. Redelivery comes later, deliberately, with the same ISRCs.
5. Assemble your promotion evidence. If the flag is streaming-related, gather invoices for legitimate ads, campaign screenshots, your posting history and gig dates: anything that explains where the listeners came from. Spotify's guidance for wrongly flagged artists is to share the methods used to genuinely promote the release with your distributor. Give your distributor that file in writing.
6. Chase the money separately. A takedown dispute and a royalty balance are different threads. Ask for the balance, the withholding clause and the payout date, even if the catalog fight takes months.

What to demand from the distributor, in writing

You are owed specifics, not a form email. Ask for each of these by name:

• The specific reason for the action: which release and which flag or claim, plus the store notice if one exists.
• Scope: whether this is a track takedown, a release takedown or an account termination, and which stores are affected.
• Your royalty balance, whether any of it is withheld and under which clause of the agreement, and the date it pays out.
• A full metadata export: ISRCs, UPCs, release dates, contributor splits and delivered audio specifications.
• Whether an appeal path exists, what evidence it accepts and its deadline.
• Written confirmation that you may redistribute the recordings elsewhere.

Send it once, calmly, with the items numbered. A numbered list is harder to answer with a template, and every unanswered number becomes part of your record.

Protect the catalog while it's down

The recordings are the asset; the listing was only a listing. While the dispute runs:

• Confirm you hold the masters. Final WAVs at delivered quality, artwork at full resolution, lyrics, credits. If any of it only exists inside the distributor's system, request it in the metadata export above.
• Keep your ISRCs. An ISRC, once assigned, permanently identifies its recording and is never reused: the ISRC standard ties the code to the recording, independent of changes in ownership. Your codes keep working after a takedown, whoever originally assigned them. Who controls them is its own subject, covered in our ISRC ownership guide.
• Gather proof of authorship. Session files, dated drafts, splits agreements, registration records. If the takedown came from a rights claim, especially a false one, this is what wins.
• Watch the stores. While your official versions are down, check occasionally that nobody uploads your tracks under another name. Report impostors through the store's infringement form immediately.

Getting back on stores: redelivery through a new distributor

Once the picture is clear, the route back is ordinary distribution: deliver the same recordings, with the same ISRCs, through a new distributor. Because the codes identify the recordings, stream history reconnects to them. The general playbook (metadata matching, timing, what carries over) is in our guide to switching distributors. If you're weighing where to go, our alternatives comparison lays out the options.

Three things matter more in your situation than in a normal switch:

• Be straight about the termination. A distributor that reviews intake will ask. Bring the written reason and your evidence file. You want the flag resolved, not smuggled into a new account where it can detonate twice.
• Distinguish store removals from distributor removals. If a store itself removed a recording for a confirmed policy violation, redelivering the same recording can be rejected. Resolve the underlying issue first, and don't burn your standing with a new distributor by testing it.
• Treat redelivery as a release. Stores take time to review, and playlists take time to reattach. Plan lead time instead of rushing files out the door the day your new account opens.

How Audora handles flags

We built our process for the moment this page describes. When a flag lands on an Audora release, a person reviews it before any action is taken. Nothing in that chain is automatic. If something happens to your release, you are told what happened, in plain language. The exit is written down in advance: your masters and everything made on Audora are yours, and the ISRCs Audora creates for your recordings are yours to keep. What we owe you is a public commitment you can check before you sign up and in the release workflow itself.

Distribution on paid plans runs through The Orchard, the distribution network the major labels use. Releases are timed about three weeks ahead so stores get their editorial window. It's the deliberate version of the redelivery timing above. And if you ever cancel, your music can stay distributed: We take nothing from your royalties on any plan. If you cancel and we keep your music distributed, we recover only our distribution costs from what it earns. Everything above that is still paid to you.

No distributor can honestly promise that a flag will never land. We can promise who looks at it and what you leave with.