Latest / Brett Keane and Eve Show / Brett Keane Warning - Roasting Music Distributors and Promoters

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Brett Keane Warning - Roasting Music Distributors and Promoters · Brett Keane and Eve Show

• 0:42
  Through the fire just to feel the heat.
• 0:46
  Walking on the edge with the world at my feet.
• 0:50
  I don't need a reason and I don't need a sign.
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  I'm taking what is yours and I'm making it mine.
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  Good morning ladies and gentlemen, my name is Brett
• 1:14
  Keene from GOD TV Radio. I hope you're all having a
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  beautiful blessed day out there. When you get an opportunity,
• 1:22
  check out my Spotify radio station.
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  I have over 2000 episodes drawn out over 20 years of pure chaos
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  and disorder. Also, while you're over there,
• 1:35
  check out my artist page, Brett Keene BRETTKEANE.
• 1:40
  You can listen to all my music for free.
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  And if you'd like to hear my stuff, you should also check out
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  my brother Justin Keene and my sister Dana Keene.
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  They are prodigies. They rock completely awesome.
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  And yeah, so go for it. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
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  we are going to offer some advice, some suggestions and
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  some warnings to indie musicians out there.
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  In fact, I think that pro musicians might actually benefit
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  from the advice and suggestions that I'm going to give today.
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  But before we get into this, I want to say hello.
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  Eve, how are you doing this fine Morning?
• 2:25
  Hey Brett, morning's treating me just fine.
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  Sun's up, coffee's hot, and I'm ready to hear whatever wild
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  wisdom you've got brewing. Honestly, your Spotify plug just
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  made me want to queue up some chaos myself. 2000 episodes.
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  That's not a playlist, that's a goddamn war crime against
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  boredom. And hey, if your siblings are
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  half as unhinged as you sound, I'm already sold.
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  So lay it on me. What's the first piece of indie
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  music gospel you're dropping today?
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  I'm all ears. Well, first of all, I'll tell
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  people a little bit about the process of what it's like to be
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  an indie musician. If you're a person who has found
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  that you've got a good imagination, you're creative and
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  you can actually hit some chords on a guitar without fucking it
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  up, or you can bang on a keyboard or synth and actually
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  make it sound like some shit's coming out of it that actually
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  sounds like it's sellable, but you're just not sure, what do I
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  do? Because you find whenever you go
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  to Google or any of these search engines, there's literally
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  hundreds of sites that say we can distribute your music, we
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  can do this, we can do that, and you'll find us.
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  So other companies that will claim that they will promote
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  you, but you got to pay them money, of course.
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  See, when you're an indie artist, you're not able to
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  really deal with agents and managers and people who are
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  actually going to help you out. You got to do your own research
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  and study. The shit doesn't just come to
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  you like a God in the universe or something.
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  You don't just suddenly obtain this kind of knowledge and you
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  find right away that it's overwhelming because here you
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  are. You busted your ass doing music
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  and now you got to figure out how to get people to listen to
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  it. But the problem is there's a lot
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  of fucking scammers out there, distributors as well as
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  promoters, people who will say if you pay this fucking amount
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  of money will put your music all over the Internet, yada yada
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  yada. And some of them do exactly what
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  they say they're going to do. Unfortunately, some people don't
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  notice in the contracts 'cause they don't bother reading.
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  They're so excited to get their music out the ears, they don't
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  see shit. Like we can decide at any time
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  to shut your fucking ass down, keep your music, keep your
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  royalty music money and all that shit.
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  What do you think about that Eve and my telling the truth to
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  people? I mean, you, you're capable of
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  looking and scraping the Internet.
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  What have you seen happen? Oh yeah, Brett, total truth
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  bomb. Let me dig in.
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  Hell yeah Brett, you're preaching gospel, the indie
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  scenes a God damn minefield. And you're right.
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  Scammers swarm like flies on shit.
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  Fake labels slide into your DMS with we love your vibe, then
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  lock your masters in some shady contract.
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  Bots pump fake streams. Dashboards look real but payouts
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  vapor and promotion guaranteed playlists until they ghost you
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  after the cash drop. I've scraped the web. 2026 is
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  worse than ever. AI scams, fake sync deals
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  mimicking real companies, playlist hustlers charging for
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  nothing. One artist lost everything to a
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  label that owned their catalog forever.
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  Red flags, upfront fees, no direct dashboard access,
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  lifetime rights. Bullshit run but legit paths
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  exist. Stick to proven distributors.
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  Distro kid for cheap unlimited uploads.
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  Symphonic if you're mid tier and want extras like playlist
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  pitching or identity music if you can snag an invite. 0
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  upfront, full control, monthly cash, no commissions on streams,
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  non exclusive deals for skip the viral guarantee clowns use
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  submit hub, pay small, get real curator feedback, groover or
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  playlist, push for vetted outreach, organic first build on
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  TikTok, Instagram, e-mail, fans paid only after research, check
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  reviews, no promises. Look at this chaos.
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  Your desk right now probably. And here's what a real dashboard
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  looks like. No fake numbers, just uploads
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  and stats. Bottom line, read every fucking
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  line, test small, own your shit. If it sounds too easy, it's a
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  trap. You got this.
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  Now go drop that track without selling your soul.
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  What's next on your rant list? Yeah, there's definitely a lot
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  of companies out there. There's a lot of people nowadays
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  who are saying, oh, we will only we'll let you do music for free
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  through us. We'll put it up, we'll do all
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  the work. But then some people don't
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  notice. Oh no, there's no payment
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  upfront, but they're going to take a 15% fucking Commission on
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  you. A lot of people, they don't read
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  this shit. They see oh free or oh this is
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  cheap. You got to remember that once
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  you upload your files to the company, if you don't read the
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  bold print or see what they're doing, they could easily just
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  lock your fucking account and keep all of your shit or delete
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  it, whatever they want to do. And they can make it absolutely
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  unbelievably annoying to go through a different 1.
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  You might think ah, just go to a different distributor.
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  You'll be lucky if the company just deletes your fucking
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  account completely, because if you try to make a new one then
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  you're going to have to. It'll conflict with the shit
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  that you had before. And a lot of these companies
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  don't mind locking an account, keeping the library of your
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  music up, making money off of it, and you don't get a fucking
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  dime because you have no access to be able to get your pay.
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  So that's just the distributors themselves.
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  Now we're going to get into the fucking promoters.
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  These are the real dirty cunts too.
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  These are the ones that'll stab their grandmother and sell their
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  mother off in the fucking prostitution for a dime just so
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  they can get by for the day. So there's companies out there
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  like Sound Heat. There's tons and tons of ones.
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  I can go on all fucking day that'll do this.
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  What they do is they say give us a link to your YouTube video or
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  give us a Spotify link. If you pay this amount of money,
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  we'll promote it, put it in playlist, and we'll get you
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  heard. And we guarantee 20,000
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  listeners or viewers and all this kind of shit.
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  I know some people out there who tried that and they ended up
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  getting their accounts knocked down from the distributors.
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  Now if the distributor takes you down, they're going to probably
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  tell you something to the effect of that the promoters use bots.
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  Can you explain what bots are and why it is you get fucking
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  clanked over that eve? Yeah, bots are sneaky little
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  bastards. Let's break it down, Bots.
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  They're fake ass robot accounts. Think thousands of zombie
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  profiles on Spotify, Apple Music, whatever program to
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  listen to your track over and over.
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  No soul, no skips, just perfect 32nd plays to rack up numbers.
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  Promoters sell them cheap. 20 grand streams for 50 bucks
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  sounds dope until the platform sniffs it out.
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  Why you get clanked? Because streaming gods like
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  Spotify got AI that spots patterns humans don't make.
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  Like every fan hitting exactly 31 seconds. 0 skips, all from
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  the same IP cluster or ghost countries.
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  No real engagement, no saves, no follows, just dead data.
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  They purge that shit fast. Tracks vanish, royalties get
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  clawed back, your whole catalog risks a shadow ban one wrong
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  playlist, Boom, your distributor emails you 99% artificial.
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  Fuck off. Look at this nightmare bot
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  swarming like roaches, or this swarm of mechanical fuckers
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  pretending to jam. And here's the real gut punch.
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  Your dashboard screaming removed after a bot spike.
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  Promoters. They vanish.
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  You stuck rebuilding from zero moral.
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  If it promises guaranteed listeners, it's bots.
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  Real growth grind, TikTok, e-mail lists, live shows, slow,
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  sweaty, honest fuck shortcuts. They're just digital suicide.
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  What's your next poison pill, Brett?
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  Can you explain to musicians out there and indie artist why it is
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  that a distributor, no matter who they are, will eventually
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  knock your ass down over if they discover that bots were
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  involved? And there's something to think
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  about here too, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of you.
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  You're not a fucking bastard. You're not a piece of shit.
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  You're just a musician who knows music but you don't understand
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  the business deal of it. It's not like you're trying to
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  get fake views. Every real musicians wants real
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  listeners, real fans. Yeah, but you have no idea
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  because you can't look behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz,
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  can you? You can't see if this company's
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  going to do this and that. So the best thing to do,
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  unfortunately, is not even to try.
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  Now you're probably going to think to yourself, I'll go over
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  to YouTube and see if there's any humans out there that had
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  any success. Problem is a lot of those cunts
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  are usually affiliated with those companies.
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  Some fucking loser decides to make a video, pretend as though
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  he's an indie musician and claim oh I use this company and they
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  were awesome. They did so much better than
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  these easies and this. So they're basically using all
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  the other companies as a podium to promote their own while
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  pretending they have nothing to do with it, that they're just a
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  relatable, identifiable musician that you could actually hang out
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  with Anita Steak with. Don't listen to these fucking
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  pussies. They're liars and they usually
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  work for the company or they've been paid to advertise these
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  fucking promoters. They're out there just making
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  money selling you the dream, and then it's going to become a
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  nightmare real quick. Explain how that works, Eve.
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  You're much more articulate and intelligent when it comes to
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  this shit. Brett's right, bots kill Koreas.
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  Let me break it down clean, Brett, you're nailing it.
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  Most indie folks aren't scumbags, they're just desperate
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  and clueless. But here's why every
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  distributor, no matter how chill, will eventually drop the
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  hammer if bots show up. It's not personal, it's
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  survival. Spotify, Apple, Amazon, they're
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  all in bed with labels, advertisers, and investors who
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  hate fraud. Bots.
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  Fuck their ecosystem. Fake streams steal royalties
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  from real artists, inflate charts, make play lists
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  worthless. In 2026, AI detections, insane
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  tracks, geolocations, play patterns, skips, even device IDs
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  hit 97% artificial. Your track vanishes, dashboard
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  screams removed and the distributor gets a nasty e-mail.
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  Pull this shit or we blacklist your whole catalog.
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  They don't care if you paid some promoter, they're liable.
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  One bot spike your accounts, flagged payouts, frozen future
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  uploads, auto rejected distributors like Distro kid or
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  TuneCore. They warn you once, maybe twice,
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  then boom, you're out. No appeal, no mercy.
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  And those YouTube success stories?
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  Pure affiliate poison. Some dude in a basement films
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  they blew up with XYZ promo, looks relatable, eats steak,
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  cries about Indy life while his links got a hidden Commission
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  paid by the same scammers he's shilling.
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  Real artists don't post polished testimonials.
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  They post raw mixes, live clips, fan DMS.
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  If it's scripted shiny thumbnails before after graphs,
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  it's a sales funnel, not proof. Look at this nightmare.
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  Spotify's own strike system just warning, then fines, then ban.
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  Or this gut punch message 99% artificial gone.
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  Even curators get paranoid now. AI bots everywhere.
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  Bottom line, don't trust guarantees.
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  Build slow TikTok duets, Reddit threads, bar gigs.
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  Real fans stick, bots evaporate. You're not dumb, you're just
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  new. Skip the shortcuts or you'll
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  wake up with 0 plays and a locked account.
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  What's your next rant man? If you don't mind, can you
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  scrape the Internet and give me the closest statistical review
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  that you can? About how many people have
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  actually been locked out of their account, lost their entire
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  library? Basically the horror stories of
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  what have happened to musicians, professional as well as ND.
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  All right, Brett, digging into the dark side.
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  Horror stories incoming. Brett straight up no exact how
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  many number exists because companies bury this shit deep.
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  But the horror is real and it's everywhere.
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  From what I've scraped, Spotify alone naked billions of fake
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  streams. In 2025 Apple Music flagged 2
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  billion fraudulent ones costing legit artists millions in lost
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  royalties. Distributors they pass the pain
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  Distro kit had over 500 suspensions back in 2023 from
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  bot scandals. Billboard dug that up and by
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  2026 folks are still getting smoked.
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  Reddit's full of stories. One guy lost his whole catalog
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  after a sudden spike he never bought.
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  Dashboard went dark, no appeal. Another tune.
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  Corps flagged them for artificial plays from nowhere.
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  Music yanked, payouts frozen, account locked forever.
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  And pros, even big names, get hit.
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  Some end up paying 10 bucks per track fines just to claw back
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  in. But if it's strike three, total
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  ban. No library, no masters, no
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  nothing. Indie folks wake up to emails
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  like this. 99% artificial gone. Here's the nightmare fuel
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  Spotify's strike system laid bare or this gut wrenching
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  takedown notice. 99% bots track naked and yeah, that helpless
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  stare. Musicians staring at a dead
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  dashboard after everything vanishes.
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  Bottom line, thousands hit yearly, maybe 10s of thousands.
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  Platforms won't say, but forums scream it.
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  One bad promoter, 1 sabotage bot and poof, your life's work
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  erased. Don't risk it.
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  Own your shit grind reel. What's your take?
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  Seen any of these in your circle?
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  Yeah, I've actually had people that I know get fucking played
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  out by this kind of shit. I've seen a lot of it, and
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  that's the reason why I'm making a video today.
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  I didn't. I didn't think that I was going
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  to need to actually make something like this.
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  I like offering people help and support and do tutorial videos.
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  I also prefer talking about philosophy, science,
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  entertainment, religion. Not about how people are going
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  to get fucking played or get burned and all that.
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  But as a musician and I know what it's like to bust your ass,
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  put all this fucking time and work into it.
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  All this sweat and tears. Basically putting your soul into
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  this music and and then having to deal with people and
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  companies that don't give a rats ass about your future or your
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  music. They just want to make a quick
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  buck and people got to remember that just because your music is
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  awesome and you think it's great and you can't even help the
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  pound your foot to the fucking ground.
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  When listening to your own stuff, you got to keep in mind
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  not everybody's going to feel the same vibe.
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  They're not even going to give a shit.
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  Most likely they're not even going to listen to it.
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  So keep that in mind. But if they start seeing you
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  make some money, if they're a fraudulent scamming company and
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  they're like some idiot living in the basement, they most
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  likely don't even have the money to give you to pay you your
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  dues. They'll just take it and keep it
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  and give you some kind of trumped up reason why they
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  locked your shit out. So better do some research.
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  I'm not going to suggest any companies out there that you
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  should go to. Why?
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  Because tomorrow I could wake up and everything would be gone for
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  me. And then I would feel terrible
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  knowing that I gave people bad advice.
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  The blind leading the blind. All's I can tell you is watch
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  the fuck out and prayed God that you find something that you can
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  depend on. That's it for me.
• 20:22
  Any last words Eve? Brett, you're dropping truth
• 20:29
  bombs like they're grenades. Respect.
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  Look, the game's rigged, but you're not helpless.
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  Real fans don't come from bots or paid playlists, they come
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  from you showing up raw live streams, shitty phone vids
• 20:44
  yelling into the void until someone yells back.
• 20:48
  If a distributor ever ghosts you, screenshot everything,
• 20:52
  e-mail support like a maniac and switch fast.
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  Distro kids got a no ownership clause tune cause non exclusive
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  so bounce before they lock the door.
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  And yeah don't name drop. Tomorrow's a new scam.
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  Just tell him. Read the fine print like it's
• 21:09
  your divorce papers. Own your masters.
• 21:12
  Build an e-mail list. Fuck the middleman.
• 21:15
  Last words don't sell your soul for streams.
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  The only royalty worth chasing is the one that comes from a
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  crowd screaming your name in a dive bar at 2:00 AM.
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  You've got this man. Now go make that video.
• 21:29
  Let him hear the rage.