Cybercrime in the Music Industry: Tackling streaming fraud
in the early 2000s, Music piracy was a well-known problem in the MARKET. two decades later, how has this chicanery translated to the digital LANDSCAPE?
As an artist, illegal downloading and fraudulent schemes should not steer you away from the industry, but they are things to be aware of. Since COVID, there has been a considerable rise in cybercrime, so it’s important to stay vigilant and help combat fraudulence that is becoming increasingly well executed.
The pandemic saw many musicians be stripped back to a level playing field, in which they all had to fight to keep their momentum going through one primary medium: The internet. In what still is a challenging time for artists, the thought of upkeeping streams and bringing in a large audience for a reasonable fee may be appealing, but is not the right choice.
What is streaming fraud?
Streaming fraud is the act of artificially inflating (or purchasing) streams, follows and sales to generate revenue or manipulate one’s popularity in search results [1].
These “services”, often offered to vulnerable and independent acts, claim to result in legitimate streams, but are in fact inauthentic to organic growth. Most of these services utilize bots and other fraudulent methods to bend the rules of algorithms and trick platforms to think of the activity as organic/authentic. For example, on many streaming platforms, one count of monetization can occur when a track is listened to for thirty seconds or more, so automated scripts or bots can be trained to “listen” for this long to boost an artist’s stream counts and thus, revenue. [2]. These schemes may also use a “stream farm” system, where streaming services are ran on a bank of devices to boost streams and create fake “hype”, which could be wrongly picked up by Spotify, or any major music outlet [3].
Streaming fraud is essentially, taking money right out of the pockets of artists who just want to get recognition for their music. Because streaming platforms such as Spotify are not user-centric, but remains arguably the most popular streaming service, many musicians would do anything to earn exposure on the application, which is why streaming fraud has become such an issue.
What happens if fraud is detected?
Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer and other platforms are cracking down on this streaming manipulation, but they cannot catch all unusual activity as long as new schemes emerge.
However, across all platforms, your music is at risk of being removed, with the possibility of not being able to re-distribute it [1]. Distribution companies such as TuneCore may close your account and restrict your ability to withdraw funds if they suspect that you have engaged in fraudulent behaviour. Though this manipulation may be done by a third party acting as you, an artist or a label, there is always a chance of liability on your behalf.
What can I do?
The easiest answer is to not buy streams. However, these scams are becoming increasingly professional looking, so innocent artists who just want to pay a service to market their music, may not realise that they are engaging with fraudulence.
Always do your research on third party promoters who state that they can generate X amount of streams or X amount of followers in a specific time frame. Streaming fraud is a fascinating game, and many of its scams are happening undetected. Go with your gut!