Jonathan Terrell’s Album Was Pulled From Streaming. He Took It Personal

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The technology dystopia that we appear to be hurdling towards has taken some troubling turns in 2025, especially when it comes to independent artists trying to disseminate their music to the public. Along with AI and outright digital song theft, one major issue that has emerged for independent performers is getting their albums yanked from streaming platforms due to false claims of streaming fraud.

The results are punitive, and often presented as permanent. Performers receive an email notification that one of their songs or albums has been flagged for paid-for streaming activity, and then the album is removed from all streaming services with no recourse, no humans to reach out to, and no real dispute resolution protocol to move forward with.

Artists and labels paying for fake streams is a very real problem, and this issue is the result of streaming services attempting to address it. But independent artist who would never engage in this type of practice are becoming the collateral damage in the fight against streaming fraudsters who use legitimate tracks to try and insulate the paid-for performers from getting discovered.

In September, it was The Piedmont Boys and Cam Pierce who had albums taken off of streaming services due to these bogus streaming fraud claims. Luckily, after Saving Country Music reported on the matter, both albums were reinstated. Then later in September, it was Grayson Jenkins and Anna Wescoat who were highlighted. Luckily their albums were reinstated eventually as well. But it often takes an exceeding amount of noise to rectify these false streaming fraud claims.

An exceeding about of noise is exactly what Austin-based songwriter Jonathan Terrell has been making after his 2020 album Westward was pulled from streaming recently due to these false claims. But he’s decided to not just make this about himself. After sharing his story, other artist whose music had faced similar fates spoke up with similar stories. Since many of them didn’t have the same resources Terrell does to address the situation, it inspired him to tackle this matter head on not just for himself, but for the Austin music community, and independent music at large.


“Yes I was pissed off and confused when they pulled my record. It was frustrating,” Terrell explains to Saving Country Music. “But then when I posted about it, I watched a hundred of my friends and music community in Austin and all over the place say, ‘This happened to me, and I went back and forth with them for weeks and months, and never put my album back up because I was overwhelmed.’ And all of these people are independent artists.”

In the comments of Terrell’s original Instagram post on December 8th, artists Ian Loveless, Eric Hagen, Erick Willis, and Craig Bowen were just some of the performers who piped up and said they’d experienced the same or similar issues. Often TuneCore is the distributor of the music that gets targeted, but not always, while Spotify is the streaming service that issues these takedown notices.

“I feel lucky that I do have contacts at TuneCore and Spotify that I can call,” says Terrell. “Whenever I saw everyone else … I specifically went through the proper channels that anyone else would, because I want to know everything that they would have to do when they don’t have a phone number for somebody.”

Terrell’s social media posts made so much noise, TuneCore responded directly, which is rarely the case. It was the response Jonathan Terrell received from the music community that got TuneCore to pay attention. Luckily on Tuesday (12-9), the record was reinstated.


Terrell then used this experience to create a PDF (see below) that he is sharing with anyone who is going through similar issues. On Wednesday night (12-10), Terrell also used a performance at High Noon on Caesar Chavez in east Austin to perform the songs from his pulled album Westward, and to hold a sort of symposium for the Austin community to discuss the situation, and what to do when your album is pulled.

“I’ve spent my whole career punching up. This is nothing new to me,” Terrell says. “TuneCore has been helpful, but it is pretty wild how quickly they rolled over for Spotify. I feel like they started communicating when dozens of people started speaking up and reposting stuff. It’s almost like the Diddy documentary. One person says something, and then 100 people also go, ‘Yeah, that happened to me as well.'”

Austin musicians including Aaron McDonnell, David Ramirez, Nick Garza, and others were in attendance at High Noon on Wednesday night to support Jonathan Terrell, and show their solidarity over the issue.

Jonathan Terrell performing with David Ramirez at High Noon

“I feel very protective over the independent music community, and especially the Austin music community that has had my back since day one,” Terrell says. “They’ve been there for me through various bands and projects, personal things, whenever I had vocal cord surgery. People were sending me groceries when I couldn’t sing for seven months. That’s my community, so f-ck this s-hit.”

Terrell was selling copies of his Westward album for “pay what you want” Wednesday night, along with his other merch and his new 2025 album Dove released back in September. He was also taking proceeds of sales to donate to HAAM—the Austin organization that helps provide health insurance and other services to Austin musicians.

“A lot of boutique artists like myself, we thrive in a boutique world of listeners,” Terrell explains. “So this issue is just an extra nudge to makes some cassette tapes, keep making vinyl, because this is the real world of listening to music in its purest form. When I get to hand somebody a record I made, and I signed it, and I put all of my friends’ names on the record in the sleeve, and I hand it to a person, that is a whole journey you just passed off to them instead of just skimming through a playlist.”

Along with addressing the takedowns of albums over false streaming fraud claims, what Jonathan Terrell and others are doing is showing how music communities can come together to support each other through the increasingly common technological turmoil plaguing independent music.

Today it’s these streaming fraud claims that are taking the life’s work of performers and punitively removing them from the digital marketplace. Tomorrow it’s likely to be AI or some other unforeseen adversary. But music will still survive in-person, and on the local level, if nowhere else.

Jonathan Terrell’s PDF On What To Do If Your Album Is Pulled From Streaming

Streaming Protection for Spotify & TunecoreDownload


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