Just like piracy, low royalty payments, and AI-generated content that borrows from artists without consent, fraud continues to plague the music industry. Estimates suggest that at least 10% of all streaming activity is fake, amounting to billions of dollars in misdirected revenue each year. That money should be going to real artists, but instead, it’s being siphoned off by bad actors gaming the system.
So why is streaming fraud so easy to pull off? The problem lies in the structure itself. Streaming platforms and independent distributors have made it easier than ever to upload music. While this has opened doors for countless creators, it’s also created a system with minimal oversight, one where fake plays, bots, and manipulated metadata can slip through unchecked.
Streaming Scams 101: From Click Farms to Hacked Artist Pages
Criminal masterminds never tire to come up with something ingenious, so there are many fraud types that the music industry faces on a daily basis.
Bots, Fake Artists & Click Fraud
The most obvious and widespread example is bots streaming your music 24/7 non-stop. Streaming platforms register a play when a listener reaches at least the 30-second mark of a track, which is an attempt to distinguish genuine engagement from accidental clicks or quick skips. Only then does the stream count toward royalties for the artist.
Alternatively, artists can ask their fans to repeatedly play their tracks. A notable example is the Michigan-based band Vulfpeck, who reportedly made $20,000 when their fans streamed an album containing ten songs of silence.
In 2015, the band Ohm & Sport pulled off a clever stunt with the creation of an app called Eternify. The app let users stream music in repeating 30-second loops, just enough to trigger royalty payouts from Spotify with every cycle. It didn’t last long, though. Spotify quickly intervened, citing a violation of its terms of use, and the app was taken down. Still, Eternify had already gained traction in 140 countries, according to CNBC. Interestingly, despite the controversy, the app featured curated playlists that helped spotlight emerging artists.
Another way to trick the system is fake artists. The "fake artists" controversy resurfaced in 2022 when the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) published an exposé on Sweden-based indie label Firefly Entertainment. The investigation revealed how the label profits by releasing music from numerous fake artists. DN reported obtaining a list of 830 fake artist names connected to Firefly and discovered that at least 495 of these artists had their music featured on Spotify's first-party playlists.
In March, Dagens Nyheter published another exposé on Spotify’s fake artist problem, revealing the musician behind the world’s most listened-to network of fake artists on the platform. This individual is Johan Röhr, a composer from Sweden, whose music has been released on Spotify under 50 composer aliases and at least 656 invented artist names.
DN's investigation found that Röhr is responsible for over 2,700 songs released under various fake artist names on Spotify, including Minik Knudsen, Mingmei Hsueh, Csizmazia Etel, and Adelmar Borrego. These tracks have amassed approximately 15 billion streams. This combined stream count makes Röhr Sweden’s most played artist on Spotify, surpassing even Avicii in monthly listeners. Globally, DN reports that Röhr ranks among the 100 most-streamed artists on Spotify of all time and outpaces legends like Michael Jackson, Metallica, and Mariah Carey.
Röhr's private company has generated significant revenue from his music, earning over SEK 70 million (approximately $6.7 million) between 2020 and 2022. In 2022 alone, the company earned SEK 32.7 million (approximately $3.1 million), all from royalties. Röhr’s songs have been added to well over a hundred different playlists for instrumental music, which collectively have over 62 million followers. Using unique data analysis, DN found that Röhr has songs on at least 144 official Spotify playlists under various artist pseudonyms, and in eleven of these playlists, more than a fifth of the tracks are his. It was later revealed that Johan Röhr’s music was distributed by Epidemic Sound, which was officially confirmed by Epidemic Sound's Overtone Studios CEO Niklas Brantberg in a written statement.
But there are also more sophisticated, less visible methods of committing fraud on streaming platforms, rooted not in gimmicks, but in technology.
Click fraud is one example. Borrowed from the world of digital advertising, where bots mimic human behavior to repeatedly click on pay-per-click ads, this tactic has found its way into music streaming. In this context, fraudsters create fake artists and upload fake tracks, which are then “played” by automated bots—generating royalties with every stream. Naturally, the operation involves dozens, if not hundreds, of fake accounts to inflate the numbers. While CNBC estimates click fraud as a whole to be a $10 billion-a-year problem, there’s no clear data on how much of that affects the music industry specifically.
One common illicit tactic used by music marketers to inflate streaming numbers is stream farming. In 2021, Rolling Stone uncovered a pay-for-play “black market” where third-party companies promise to generate hundreds of millions of streams each month, mostly through bot accounts, for a network of artists. “There are a few third-party companies out there running this for a lot of the major companies,” an anonymous record label employee told the Vox magazine. “We use them too for some of our artists.” But it’s a risky game. Spotify penalizes artists whose tracks are flagged for artificial streaming, even if the artist or label wasn’t directly involved. “It’s really terrible for your data profile on Spotify,” says Goodrich.
Even streaming services themselves are sometimes the bad actors. Tidal, for instance, was once accused of falsifying streams for Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” and Kanye West’s “Life of Pablo” and allegedly paid inflated royalties to the artists' labels. Assuming the accusations were accurate, Tidal was accountable for several hundred million artificial streams. It’s worth noting, though, that Tidal is primarily owned by Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z.
Impersonation & Account Hacks
No matter how secure and reliable major streaming platforms claim to be, account hacking remains a serious issue, one that can lead to stream manipulation. It usually starts with someone gaining unauthorised access to an artist’s profile, often targeting those without a verification badge. Once inside, hackers insert fraudulent links into features like Canvas or Artist Pick, hijacking the account to redirect attention and traffic elsewhere.
Uploading music to a digital service provider (DSP) under someone else’s name is a clear case of impersonation. But the tactic isn’t always that blatant; sometimes it involves mimicking an artist’s stage name, copying album titles, or using similar wording to mislead listeners. One well-known case involved a Nigerian musician going by the name Wisekid. In 2021, he released an album titled Lasgidi Made and copied the track titles from Made in Lagos by the internationally recognized artist Wizkid. The result was millions of streams on Apple Music and Amazon Music; streams likely earned through confusion, not fanfare. A sly trick, and for a while, a lucrative one.
Sixto Rodriguez, the focus of the documentary Searching for Sugar Man, was a victim of music fraud long before streaming made it digital. Clarence Avant, the executive tied to his early career, allegedly released Rodriguez’s music under false identities, cutting the artist out of both credit and royalties. Unbeknownst to him, Rodriguez’s albums had become hugely popular in South Africa during the 1990s, resonating deeply with the anti-apartheid movement. It wasn’t until Rodriguez visited the country years later that he discovered the scale of his influence, and the extent of the deception.
Playlists Scams
Playlist scams have also become a troubling part of the music industry, involving deceptive tactics where artists, labels, or third-party companies artificially inflate streaming numbers. These scams often revolve around paying for spots on popular playlists which are basically promises that sometimes fall flat or lead to fake playlists created purely to swindle artists.
This is simply how streaming services operate. Platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal focus primarily on the music itself, not the personalities behind it. That approach makes sense, since these are streaming platforms; fans who want to follow artists’ lives turn to social media instead but this music-first model has reshaped the discovery process. In the past, we’d usually hear about an artist first and then seek out their music. Today, it’s often the other way around: we stumble upon a track on Spotify and only if it really grabs us do we look up the artist on YouTube or Google.
Is track manipulation a fraud?
Track manipulation isn’t always outright fraud; or at least, it isn’t always intended that way. When DJs or fans create sped-up or slowed-down versions of their favorite songs hoping to earn some revenue, it doesn’t immediately feel fraudulent.
However, these altered tracks can raise serious copyright and royalty issues. A recent study by digital rights technology firm Pex uncovered over one million “manipulated” tracks on streaming platforms. These are original songs that have been changed: sped up, slowed down, or otherwise modified, and then uploaded as new recordings. Often, the creators haven’t licensed the original material, meaning they collect royalties from streams without the rightful copyright owners’ permission. This practice diverts revenue from artists and leads to misattribution and misuse of their work. While not always labeled as fraud, it has a notable impact on the music industry and the fair distribution of royalties.
Spotify has taken steps to address this. The platform now allows users to remix and manipulate tracks legally, ensuring that rights holders get paid when these versions are streamed. Given recent reports about manipulated tracks cutting into artists’ earnings, Spotify’s move appears to be an effort to better control this space and curb unauthorized speed-ups, slow-downs, and effects applied to popular songs.
Never-ending Combat with Fraudsters & Streamers' Response
Fraudsters never stop, but streaming services are responding. Spotify has introduced a new royalty system aimed at curbing artificial streaming fraud by charging labels and distributors for each track flagged for blatant manipulation. This creates a financial disincentive for those distributing music designed to divert earnings from legitimate artists. Additionally, Spotify now requires tracks to accumulate at least 1,000 streams within the past 12 months to qualify for royalties to ensure that only actively listened-to recordings generate payments.
Another major step in the fight against streaming fraud is Music Fights Fraud, a global task force made up of leading music companies, including CD Baby, Downtown, TuneCore, Believe, DistroKid, UnitedMasters, Symphonic, EMPIRE, Vydia, Spotify, and Amazon Music. The group’s mission is to eliminate fraud and manipulation across digital service providers by focusing on detection, prevention, mitigation, and enforcement, working toward a music industry where fraudulent activity has no room to thrive.
The initiative is also education and awareness. By developing better detection algorithms and educational tools, Music Fights Fraud informs artists and distributors about the risks and consequences of buying streams. Dedicated anti-fraud teams are being formed to monitor platforms more closely, flag suspicious behavior, and ensure that partners receive daily reports to help them act quickly when manipulation is detected.
Spotify also offers educational tools to raise awareness about the harmful consequences of buying streams, discouraging the practice of fake streaming. Deezer has rolled out a state-of-the-art algorithm to detect suspicious music streaming activity better and improve cross-departmental collaboration to stay ahead of the game.
Apple Music has invested in new technology and built a dedicated team to identify and investigate suspicious streaming activity to ensure partners receive daily reports on suspicious activity, according to an email they sent to its streaming partners, as reported by Billboard. As per that email, Apple Music has been policing its platform against "the deliberate, artificial creation of plays for royalty, chart, and popularity purposes" and "the delivery of deceptive or manipulative content," such as "an album of 31-second songs.” The combat has been allegedly successful: since Apple Music has introduced new tools and policies in October 2024, “manipulated streams have accounted for only 0.3 percent of all streams.” Even though 0.3% might seem like a tiny portion, it still equates to 85,000 albums, the same email says.
“This all happens before Apple Music pays royalties and tabulates charts,” the email says. “We block wrongdoers from the primary advantages of stream manipulation and redirect royalties to valid plays of content.”
That isn't the only thing Apple Music does, though. The streaming platform helps distributors and labels figure out where fraud is occurring by sending daily reports to them that spill the beans on "a content provider’s albums with streams held in review." "After each review, we remove manipulated streams and release legitimate plays. At the end of each month, content providers also receive a report with all excluded streams," as reported by Billboard.
Sanctions and punishments for fraud that Apple Music applies vary from "financial adjustments" to accounts bans and termination of distribution agreements.
Last year, Spotify has stated that combating streaming fraud is a top priority for 2024. The service has introduced a new policy to prevent the uploading of white noise tracks and reduce intentional streaming fraud. That policy, which has been poorly received by musicians and the media, sets a payment threshold as well. This means that smaller artists who don't meet this threshold won't be paid for their streams at all.
Beides, Spotify told CNBC that they are “constantly developing algorithms to make them smarter, and to make sure that we are only stripping out artificial or manipulated streams.”
Although music streaming fraud is still in place, the measures aren’t useless, with Apple Music seemingly having the lowest fraud level. Deezer stated last year that they had found about 7% of fraudulent streams and deleted 26 million useless white noise tracks in 2023 which is 13% of content, while Spotify stated their artificial listening level was less than 1%.
The fight is complex and often leads to nothing. Streaming fraud is absolutely and explicitly illegal and it’s not easy to identify the fraud source, so it’s nearly impossible to take legal actions against fraudsters or even deter them from fraudulent activity.
Fraudsters are now leveraging AI to generate massive catalogues of synthetic songs, which are then uploaded under fake artist profiles. Automated bots are used to stream these tracks repeatedly, inflating play counts and siphoning royalty payments away from legitimate creators. Platforms like Deezer report that about 10,000 AI-generated tracks are uploaded daily, representing roughly 10% of their daily new content as of early 2025. This made the French streamer act quickly and introduce AI song tags to identify and block AI-generated tracks used for fraud, and its "Radar" system scans for unusual streaming patterns. Other industry players like Beatdapp offer auditing platforms that analyse trillions of data points to flag irregular listening patterns, thus helping platforms and distributors spot and shut down fraudulent activity.
So even if the battles are often lost, the war against the fraud still isn't.
