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A disturbing report circulated online in the first week of 2021. According to one entertainment attorney, Spotify has reportedly removed “about 750,000 songs” from its platform due to evidence of streaming fraud, adding that “most” of the songs are “[ed] You may have used Distrokid for distribution. The infuriated artists lashed out at both streamers and distributors on social media, claiming they had never been involved in the fraudulent stream and had no idea why their music was taken down.
However, Spotify disputed both of these claims, saying the number of songs removed was far less than 750,000 songs and that music from various distributors was affected. Distrokid Founder Philip Kaplan “These deletions were distributor-agnostic and affected music for all distributors (not just DistroKid).” Despite these counterarguments, the initial claims continued to circulate for months. .
Over two years later, a variation of this episode was played again. On May 1st, Boomy, a music technology company that allows users to create songs with the help of artificial intelligence tools, said it was suspending new uploads due to “possible unusual activity” and “certain A catalog release has been removed from Spotify, the company posted on its Discord. ”
The boomy post was appreciated, but not so well received. The company’s statement was initially seen as confirmation that AI was causing more problems amid a wave of anti-AI sentiment in the music industry. Then the story changed. Spotify said the “unusual activity” was related to streaming fraud and not the fact that Boomy’s tools rely on artificial intelligence. And a few days later, it turned out that Spotify had removed even more music due to evidence of manipulation as part of a routine cleaning. It had nothing to do with Boomy or his AI.
This whole incident now appears to be less about any particular company and just a natural part of streaming services’ ongoing efforts to prevent fraud affecting payments on their platforms. (Spotify has consistently said over the years that “stream manipulation is an industry-wide issue” and that it is addressing it “very seriously.”)
These episodes present the challenge of accurately reporting the murky world of streaming fraud. It turns out that even the most basic information is not kept, such as how many trucks were affected, what criteria were used to determine that they were manipulated, or how they compare to overall fraud levels. It often happens. It is beyond the reach of technology companies. But the fight against streaming fraud is, to one degree or another, a never-ending game of whack-a-mole across all streamers and all distributors, and focusing on a single mole sees the larger context. It may become difficult.As Christine Burnhamchief revenue officer of distributor CD Baby, recently said: billboard“no one is immune” to this kind of fraud.
According to Boomy, about 7% of music on Spotify was removed after being targeted by bot activity in April. After a brief pause, as of May 5, Boomy users were able to resume uploading new songs to Spotify. [on Deezer] It is currently being detected as cheating. Merlin, which handles digital licenses for many prominent independent labels and distributors, briefly hit fraud levels near 10% (from Spotify’s ad-supported tier of music) in 2020.
Publicly speaking about streaming scams was once seen as ‘broadcasting dirty secrets,’ says one executive billboard recently. But things are changing. Leaders from SoundCloud, Pandora and Napster all spoke about their efforts to combat cheating on their respective platforms during a panel discussion at the 2022 Music Biz conference. last month, Umadi Oniekwel“If you look at the music industry in Nigeria, one of the biggest problems is stream farming, which has become more pervasive and prominent over the years,” said Mudundo, head of music licensing for African streaming service Mudundo. It’s coming,” he wrote.
This is the everyday reality of the modern music ecosystem. Last year, Deezer said the company detected suspicious activity on 45,000 accounts per day, and that Spotify regularly reports to key rights owners on the level of fraud detected in its catalog. said it was sending (The fraudulent play identified in those reports was caught, meaning it didn’t affect payouts.) We consistently remove products designed to gamify the system.”
Alex MitchellBoomy’s CEO said in an interview. billboard This week, “Our review team spends an enormous amount of time on the issue. [protecting the platform from fraud]. Frankly, we have a much stricter policy than many other distributors. We have a system to warn you if something looks suspicious. And there is a research process to determine if the team should withhold revenue or contact the DSP. We also work with industry-leading fraud detection companies to improve our systems as we scale. “
Still, anyone’s music can be a target for bots on streaming platforms. morgan hydukco-founder/co-CEO of Beatdapp, a company that builds software that detects and mitigates fraud. billboard Earlier this year, it became clear that one of the less-discussed aspects of the scam was the “collateral damage” caused. “Scammers often mix and stream targeted content with other popular artists using their account on their streaming platform to avoid detection,” he said. explained. For example, use bots to mix and play music from regular stars, not just tracks. they are trying to push. (Beatdapp he works with Boomy, but he returns questions about “unusual activity” to Boomy.)
This means that even when fraud is identified, it can be difficult to determine its source. “It’s hard to say who’s responsible.” Ludovic PouillyDeezer Senior Vice President of Institutions and Music Industry Relations said: billboard in January. “The distributor may say it’s the label’s fault. The label may say it’s management. And the artists themselves are trying to hurt their reputation.” may be said to be competitors.”
At a time when more platforms are openly discussing scams, Boomy’s announcement on Discord certainly drew a lot of attention due to the company’s ties to artificial intelligence. (“People are panicking a little too much,” a veteran music tech executive recently said. billboard.) Part of that concern relates to the dilutive market share of major labels, which impacts payouts from streaming services. The music industry is also nervous about AI technology’s potential to infringe copyright and its potential to replace musicians and songwriters.
But, as Mitchell points out, streaming fraud “was there a long time before AI and before we were.” The fight against fraud has already been a technology-based arms race between those who want to protect the streaming service’s royalty pool and those who want to extract money from it.
A French study on streaming fraud published in January found that “hackers’ imaginations are rich and evolving, and the measures envisioned and implemented not only by platforms but also by distributors and music rights holders in the first place. , constantly evolving and improving, but also anticipating counterattacks from fraudsters.”
Perhaps Boomy best summed up the situation when Spotify first announced that it had detected potential evidence of fraud on several releases. “As the music industry continues to navigate the use of bots and other types of potentially questionable activity, these suspensions are likely to occur more regularly and across a wider range of platforms,” the company said. writing.
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