Brooklyn rapper and one half of acclaimed hip hop duo Run the Jewels has come out to criticize Spotify for allegedly not doing enough to protect the artist’s from fraud. In a series of Twitter posts, the rapper, who’s real name is Jaime Maline, clarified his beliefs that the site is not doing enough to make sure that people aren’t uploading other’s music under their own name.

“No matter how many times I pay my lawyer to take them down, Spotify just doesn’t care enough to not let other people upload songs to my page or my albums, that I own to theirs,” the artist stated in these posts. “What I mean is I regularly have to send take down notices not only for people using my name for their music and it appearing on my artist page but for people uploading my albums to their page and assumedly having my money diverted to them until we catch it.”

cool yeah see no matter how many times i pay my lawyer to take them down, @spotify just doesn’t care enough to not let other people upload songs to my page or my albums that i own to theirs. that’s the type of personal touch they’ve brought to the industry. $250 every time 👍 https://t.co/3NLxKemb6Z

— el-p (@therealelp) October 19, 2018

He goes on to explain that the way Spotify currently has their system means that the artist has to spend money going through their lawyer for the platform can take them down. His main complaint states that it is difficult, time consuming and therefore costly from a monetary perspective for artists through this system.

for those that don’t know, the rules spotify have set forth are as follows: if someone uploads music in your name to your page or your music to theirs fraudulently your only recourse is to issue a take down by a lawyer. spotify doesnt help. this happens to me almost monthly.

— el-p (@therealelp) October 19, 2018

Despite these criticisms he states that Spotify is an important platform for artists, however he elaborates that he would like to see Spotify evolve, and change its terms of service regarding fraud. This way artists would not have top spend money to keep their music on a platform that isn’t the most profitable, due to the small percentage it pays its artists.

i’m not saying don’t use spotify to hear my music. it’s a great app for listeners. i put it up there for that reason. the issue i have is not that. it’s that i find it infuriating that we regularly have to pay money to correct something that we shouldn’t have to. https://t.co/wPhXGn4A7V

— el-p (@therealelp) October 19, 2018

Outside of this controversy, El-P has been hard at work with his creative partner and Atlanta rapper Killer Mike with their duo Run The Jewels. Earlier this month the duo released a track entitled “Let’s Go(The Royal We),” as part of the soundtrack for the film Venom.They also helped close out the Adult Swim Film Festival this month, alongside artists such as Neko Case and Kamaiyah.

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat