The following text describes how two journalists at the news site Breakit investigated if the phenomenon of fake streams on Spotify still exists, how easy it can be applied and what the consequences could be. Read the full article here.
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Fake streams and the assumption that artists buy “listeners” to boost their careers, became a heated topic a few years ago. As a consequence, the streaming giant Spotify reassured that actions would be undertaken in the future, to diminish any problems relating to the matter.
We then asked ourselves: what has actually happened since then? And is it still just as easy as before, to gain fake streams?
We knew that people who buy fake streams were most likely not going to talk to us about it. So how could we possibly investigate the matter, using other methods? We decided to upload a song onto the platform with the aim to buy the streams ourselves.
Firstly we created an account on Spotify and used a short jingle – which also acts as the intro of Breakits podcast. We then proceed by looping the track into a 2-minute long song, and named it “Loopiloop” – under the artist name “Masas”. To be very clear, we spent minimal effort in trying to appear as if we were serious artists.
A quick search on Google was all it took to find plenty of streaming manipulation websites, e.g. suppliers that offer services that specify in boosting the number of times a track is played on Spotify.
For as little as SEK 500, or about 50 Euro, the song “Loopiloop” reached 46 000 streams in less than two weeks. We also became a ”verified” artist on Spotify.
Breakit tried to contact Spotify multiple times with an interview request. However, Spotify declined to give any comments on the investigation. Instead, the company offered a written comment:
“We take artificial streamlining very seriously. Spotify has several measures in place to detect, investigate and manage such activity. We continue to invest heavily in refining our processes and improving methods for detecting, removing, and reducing the effect that artificial manipulation has on legitimate music creators, rights holders, and our users”, Spotify answered in an email to Breakit.
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Sources to Breakit confirms that there have been issues in regards to streaming manipulation on Spotify a few years ago, but that the company has been undertaking severe actions.
"A lot of people believed it to be manipulation of the top charts. Things happened that were entirely inexplicable", says a source that held a high position in the music industry for plenty of years.
"The industry had a lot of discussions with Spotify; we believed that they would be able to do something about it. Certain regulations for charts were introduced as a consequence. Since then, my perception is that it has gotten better", the source says.
A couple of years ago Spotify said that the number of manipulated streams was below 1 percent of the total. But according to analyst Mark Mullighan, it could in fact be as much as 10 percent. If that is the case hundreds of millions of streams could actually be fake.
So, why is this problematic?
There is more than one aspect to take into consideration. The fact that boosting listeners on Spotify is remarkably easy, indicates the likelihood of some artists taking these measures to cheat their way onto the platforms’ top charts – and thus boost their careers. It also means that they get more in royalties than they would have otherwise – at the expense of artists who do not manipulate the system.
Another problem is that advertisers pay for something that is not delivered. Instead of reaching actual human listeners - they reach thousands of bots.
But the list does not end there.
Another possible issue concerns money laundering. Criminals could use black money in form of, for example, cryptocurrency to boost an artist – and then get laundered royalty money paid out, theories that were presented a couple of years ago.
The Swedish police are now aware of the problems regarding fake streams.
“We know about the phenomenon. Yes, there is a possibility that music recordings are paid for with criminal profits, that streaming services are purchased, that accounts are hijacked and, where applicable, withdrawals are made through royalties from the streaming service. It is primarily fraud, but in the long run, it may even be considered money laundering ", says Nicklas Lundh, at the Swedish police, to Breakit.
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After the investigation was published on Breakit.se, and shortly after on several media channels, such as SVT (the Swedish public services TV channel with one of the country's largest news broadcasts), Spotify removed the song, Loopiloop, from its platform.
Breakit contacted Spotify again when the song disappeared, but the company did not respond to the email.
Read the full investigation here: 46.000 streams för 500 spänn – uppblåsta siffror och köpta streams på Spotify (nu varnar polisen)