WM Digital Services

Spotify, Amazon, Deezer, the three major record labels, a number of music publishers and various other organizations representing the interests of rightholders have signed a joint agreement, in which they indicate that they will work more closely together in the fight against manipulating streams on the various online platforms.

Although every serious artist will stay away from artificially influencing the number of streams on Spotify, for example, research shows that such an 3 to 4 percent of all 'plays' on major streaming services are artificially created - eg by automated 'bots' , or companies that promise to generate a certain number of streams against payment - come into being. Because the number of streams on a platform directly influences the amount paid out per stream, beneficiaries are estimated to miss out on around 300 million dollars a year due to this type of practice.

Platforms such as Spotify are already using algorithms to detect unnatural streaming behavior and to prevent fraudulent artists from using their platform, but the new partnership should lead to even more efficient detection of unnatural streaming behavior.

You can find the complete text of the new 'Anti-Stream Manipulation of Best Practice' here.

Fortunately, we rarely have to deal with it ourselves, but of course WM Digital Services also takes strict action against fraud, whether it concerns the manipulation of streams or the unlawful use of third-party content. You can find our own Anti-Fraud Policy here.