Music streaming has exploded in popularity during the last several years, bringing with it problems such as artificial streaming, which affects the entire artist community.
Artificial streaming, also called click fraud or streaming fraud, is when play counts are increased by various means to boost a track’s popularity and therefore its revenue. It can be done by the artist, by fans who play music on repeat or, increasingly, by automated bots.
Streaming services take this issue seriously. They recently began working diligently to detect and stop it, because streaming fraud can potentially cost artists hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost revenue.
Artists need to know upfront that streaming fraud can have serious consequences for their music and their careers. If your streaming service determines there is fraudulent activity within your music account, whether by human or bot, your songs can be taken down and you won’t be paid. That could include having your entire catalog being permanently removed, which could have a damaging effect on your career well beyond your current work.
There are a number of recommendations to avoid streaming fraud, all of which require diligence by the artist.
Always check out promises from streaming services so you know exactly what you are getting. Certain red flags include promises of a specific number of streams or placement on playlists. For instance, if a site promises to boost your popularity by 400 percent, it’s a good idea to stay away from it.
If you’re not sure about streaming fraud, you need to protect your career by asking yourself if anything you’re doing could be considered artificially manipulating play counts. That includes anything done on your behalf, whether by bots or asking your fans to game the system.
If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Avoid it.
Streaming has become the primary method of distributing music and the top source of royalty payments. It has become a multibillion dollar business in the United States alone, which is why it is such a big target for fraud.
‘’It’s something that will probably increase. Whether that results in thousands of misappropriated dollars or millions, I don’t know,” John Seay, an entertainment lawyer who specializes in copyright and streaming, told the website Quartz. “It is a new development in an ongoing narrative of hustlers trying to get money they’re not entitled to.”
Some in the industry have estimated that fraud can cost artists as much as a whopping $300 million a year in lost revenue.
Now is a bad time for anyone, particularly artists, to try to buck the system. The problem is on everyone’s radar, and the industry is fighting back.
As the biggest streaming service, Spotify is trying to end click fraud by using a combination of algorithms and employees to scan its catalog for potentially illegitimate songs.
For instance, a track with thousands of repeat listens from a single user might be marked as suspicious. ”When we find something suspect, we flag it and then have it removed from the service,” Spotify spokesman Graham James told Quartz.
Platforms are able to notice unusual artist sales over the course of one day or on specific platforms.
Artists need to learn the difference between legitimate practices, such as hiring a PR company to connect with platforms, and unacceptable practices, which includes paying for artificial streams.
They also need to accept that it takes some time and exposure for their tracks to be discovered and streamed by devoted listeners, thus supporting the growth in numbers. A legitimate promotion strategy directed toward a specific demographic will lead to a real audience. Otherwise, if there appears to be an unrealistic number of streams in an unlikely amount of time, you can get blacklisted.
This raises a sobering question: if that happens, who is going to hear your music?
Last year, Digital Music News reported that Austria-based Rebeat Innovation has developed a fraud detection software solution. At the time, the product was in beta. Rebeat’s system uses complex algorithms to determine if fraud has occurred. The company demonstrated the beta-stage solution to Digital Music News, which reported that it was ”pretty fascinating.”
The demo took a close look at royalties, and it showed the challenges in detecting fraud. Industry experts think the presence of this technology will reduce fraud before it begins and will allow labels, distributors, publishers and management groups to be able to vet every statement received.
Rebeat’s CEO, Guenter Loibl, has been managing digital music royalties for more than a decade. His company has built massive systems to ingest, analyze, and calculate royalties from surging streaming plays. But he told DMN that he’s never had a way to inspect the actual streams and royalty statements handed to him — even though clients were often wondering if these numbers were legit.
“In our study, we show that the analysis of the fluctuations of the proportions of these revenues over time is a highly efficient way to identify fraud,” he told DMN.
Another emerging fraud is “playlist payola,” in which artists are buying fake streams or purchasing huge amounts of their own music on iTunes, with Spotify as one giant target.
Rebeat’s software is designed to catch such scams. Ultimately, Rebeat Innovation estimates that its solution will detect fraud approximately 94 percent of the time, again, pointing out that it’s not worth it for artists to try to game the system.
Earlier this year, a group of the industry’s major stakeholders, including record labels, publishers and royalty-collection groups, signed a code of conduct condemning fake streams and pledging to eradicate them. It was the industry’s first collaborative effort to address the issue. The code is non-binding, but it provides 21 points and targets aimed at helping stamp out the problem.
It truly will take all involved to fight the artificial streaming problem, especially artists.
To safeguard your careers, every artist should read the code of conduct for a better understanding of the problem and how the industry is fighting back.
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