In the unpredictable world of music production, it's not uncommon for dishonest artists to sneakily use your beats without purchasing or licensing them. But fear not, for there are tools at your disposal to help you uncover these violations. One such tool is Wavesmatch, a service that diligently searches for tracks utilizing your beats on various streaming platforms.

Once you've identified the culprit, the question arises: how can you effectively punish them and get the unauthorized track removed? We delve into the methods in this enlightening article.

Try to negotiate with the artist to buy a beat

Stealing a beat can be seen as an opportunity to increase sales, because in this case the artist has almost become your client, he just missed one step - payment, as soon as you remind him of it.

Find the artist’s email or contact on a social network. They usually leave details in their Spotify or SoundCloud profile. Write to the artist and invite him to purchase the beat within, for example, a week. Indicate that if he does not make payment, you will file a complaint, which will lead to the deletion of the track, as well as other sanctions against the artist (for example, blocking his account with the distributor). You can also offer to make payment only at an increased price, given violation on the part of the performer.

If the performer ignored your notice and did not make payment, it’s time to remove his track from the platforms. To do this there are two ways:

File a complaint with the distributor

Hello. My name is Alex, I noticed that your artist *Artist Name* used my beat in his track *Track Name* without permission or purchase. I published this beat on YouTube, but it was allowed to be used freely: *link to beat on YouTube*. I have attached additional evidence of my authorship to the letter. Please remove the release as soon as possible, and also block the artist's access to your service for such behavior. Otherwise I will be forced to complain through streaming services.

As a rule, distributors respond within 1-2 days and remove releases from all platforms at once.

Report to Spotify or Apple Music

If you are unable to find out who the distributor is or establish contact with him, you can file a complaint through one of the major platforms on which the release is posted. To do this, you will need to provide sufficient evidence that your rights have been violated. You can provide, for example, a video of the beat project in the sequencer, links to publications with the beat on YouTube and Beatstars, and other indirect evidence of your authorship. The platform will evaluate whether your complaint is fair, and if so, it will withdraw the release and send a notification to the distributor. Most likely, when the distributor sees that the artist does not have sufficient rights to the release, he will remove him from all platforms, but this will take some time.

Spotify responds to complaints the fastest, you can submit a strike on this site here. Be prepared for a longer response if you submit a strike on Apple Music. Due to support's long response time, it may take up to several weeks.

Pro Tip: In Wavesmatch, users with a Beatmaker and Label subscription can file a complaint about a release in one click. To do this, just click the “Submit claim” button, the information will be automatically transferred to Spotify for further investigation.

Strikes are very unprofitable for the distributor; they worsen his relationship with the platforms. Therefore, as a rule, upon receiving a complaint, the distributor tries to convince the artist to influence its withdrawal. In this case, the artist may contact you in order to pay for the beat after receiving the complaint. Because if you do not revoke the strike, this may lead to the blocking of the artist’s account and the deletion of his entire catalog. We recommend that you offer the artist to pay at an increased price, so that in the future he will make timely payments for instrumentals and other components of the musical work.

To withdraw a complaint, all you need to do is write to the platforms' support stating that you want to withdraw the complaint and indicate the name of the release.

Thus, to successfully combat pirated content, the easiest and fastest way is to file a complaint directly through Spotify. However, if you do not want to spoil the reputation of musicians and their careers, you can first try to contact them personally and convince them to purchase a license. However, often the strike is a much more convincing reason for making a payment.