Need Help Reporting!: Random Dude on Spotify Posts a 22 year Old Song As His Own With Vocals That Are Clearly Chester Bennington's.
Hey Everyone.
You read the title correctly and I have the receipts. I don't frequent reddit, and I haven't listened to Linkin Park since I was a teen back in the early 2000s, but my jaw hit the floor when I fell across this.
This morning I was listening to Spotify using the DJ AI and it brought up a song it thought I might like, as it does from time to time. The song started and my first thought was, "Wait.... I know this song. Wow. I haven't heard it in a really, really long time though." I looked at the "artist" name and it looked unfamiliar. I thought, "Maybe I am not remember this bands name correctly? I do remember it was from a movie..."
After a couple of moments it hit me: It was Chester Bennington's voice.
Long story short, after some diving: sure enough I found this guy had reuploaded this old ass song just last month and is pretending it is his own.
This scumbag has already gotten almost 10 million listens in a month!
I know that Spotify is said to not pay musicians much, but I couldn't just let this go. Not only is this dude profiting off of music that is clearly not his, but he is using a really old song (probably hoping no one would notice) that has the voice of a dead man.
Chester Bennington was one of my heros when I was younger, and I honestly still haven't processed his death even after 7 years (I still can't believe it's been that long), but I felt that if I could do anything in his honor: This is it.
I screenshot the hell out of everything that is made public and I plan to report it to Spotify (trying to figure out how, being this is an odd situation) but I would love to get some help~! If you can find the time, please report this guy. He has a couple of other songs up that I am not familiar with, but I have a feeling they aren't his either.
Thank you.
Update: I contacted Spotify support and was met with a generic answer.
I am not surprised but still disappointed. I mentioned to them that it was impossible for me to do what they ask in this email, but was met again with a generic email.
I'm at a loss at this point what else to do. :/