Trolley’s Post

Addressing the Hidden Challenge in the Music Industry 🔍 "Really good businesses get built when you identify a problem central to the company's administration, but not its core purpose. Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and SoundCloud don't exist to solve streaming fraud, yet they face this persistent industry-wide challenge, which becomes a cost and tax on their business” At Beatdapp, we focus all our time and energy on detecting streaming fraud, providing a dedicated team of experts at a cost significantly lower than what it would take for clients to staff an equivalent team themselves. Our mission is to protect artists and ensure fair payouts for all stakeholders, tackling a problem that affects everyone in the music ecosystem. 🎧 To learn more, catch our most recent podcast episode with Bobby Owsinski available here: https://lnkd.in/gTR2fqJq #MusicIndustry #StreamingFraud #Beatdapp #FairPayouts #ProtectArtists

Listen as Pearl Technology's Dave Johnson discusses a new music streaming scam on The Greg and Dan Show. Here are some takeaways: One of my favorite all-time scams is from decades ago, back in the days of printed magazines. The scammers claimed to be able to predict the sex of unborn babies. They asked people to send a few strands of the mother’s hair and $5 to them, and they would predict the sex. The scammers flipped a coin. Heads was boy, tails was girl. The scammers were right 50% of the time. Of the 50% that were wrong, only a fraction of people asked for their money back because they were busy with a new baby. But this new scam may be my new favorite. North Carolina musician Michael Smith was indicted for collecting over $10 million in royalty payments from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and YouTube Music using AI-generated songs streamed by thousands of bots in a massive streaming fraud scheme. Musicians can upload their own music to streaming platforms. On average, a steaming platform pays a ½ cent royalty to the musician every time their song is streamed. This doesn’t sound like much, until you factor in AI generated songs and use bots to stream the songs. If bots are doing the streaming, the songs don’t even have to be good. Smith acquired hundreds of thousands of songs generated through AI from a coconspirator and uploaded them to these platforms. He operated 52 cloud services accounts, each with 20 bot accounts, totaling 1,040 bots. He also estimated that each account could stream approximately 636 songs per day, resulting in around 661,440 total streams daily. With an average royalty rate of half a cent per stream, Smith calculated that the daily earnings would reach $3,307.20, monthly earnings of $99,216, and annual earnings exceeding $1.2 million. Overall, Smith claimed his songs generated over 4 billion streams and $12 million in royalties since 2019. Smith now faces charges of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy, with each charge carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. #Cybersecurity #GregandDanShow #PearlTechnology

New Post: Streaming Fraud Indictment, White Stripes v. Trump, Spotify’s Eminem Victory & More Music Law News - https://lnkd.in/gXMKQejD - This is The Legal Beat, a weekly newsletter about music law from Billboard Pro, offering you a one-stop cheat sheet of big new cases, important rulings and all the fun stuff in between. This week: Prosecutors file a first-of-its-kind criminal case against an alleged streaming fraudster who made $10 million with fake songs; the White Stripes file a copyright case against Donald Trump over use of their music; Spotify wins a strongly-worded ruling dismissing a long-running lawsuit filed by Eminem’s publisher; and much more. THE BIG STORY: Streaming Fraud Finally Goes To Court When Manhattan federal prosecutors indicted a North Carolina musician named Michael Smith last week, accusing him of stealing $10 million in streaming royalties as part of a “brazen fraud scheme,” they told a story that much of the music industry already knew. Streaming fraud – artificially boosting traffic for certain songs – has been a growing problem for years. One study found that 1% to 3% of plays in France in 2021 were fraudulent; a 2022 report by fraud-detection service Beatdapp estimated that more than 10% of global streams were fake.  And this isn’t the scam from “Office Space,” stealing fractions of a penny from a faceless tech giant. Because royalties are calculated as a percentage of a finite pie, every phony stream represents real money being diverted away from music that consumers actually played and the artists who created it. In the first-of-its-kind indictment, the feds say Smith created thousands of fake songs, then used an army of bots to play them billions of times on Spotify and other streamers. At one point, Smith estimated that he could play his songs 661,440 times each day, raking in as much as $1.2 million per year. The feds say Smith’s plot was aided by artificial intelligence – another growing problem for the industry. When he couldn’t create enough fake tracks to make the scam work, Smith allegedly partnered with an unnamed executive at an A.I. music company to produce grist for his mill, funneling money back in the form of percentage cuts. For more details go read Kristin Robinson’s stories – on the filing of the charges, and on an AI company with strong ties to the accused fraudster.  Other top stories this week… “SUES FASCISTS” – The White Stripes filed a copyright lawsuit against Donald Trump for using their iconic “Seven Nation Army” in a social media post, arguing that any association with the president was “offensive” because they “vehemently oppose” his policies and his bid for another term in the White House. In announcing the case, Jack White included a screenshot of the complaint with the caption “this machine

Warning Against Artificial Streams and Stream Fraud Attention all Trust Music users, It has come to our attention that some individuals are engaging in artificial streams and stream fraud on various streaming platforms, including Spotify. We want to make it clear that Trust Music does not condone or tolerate such activities. Streaming platforms like Spotify are actively working against artificial streams and stream fraud. In fact, Spotify is currently imposing fines on anyone involved in these deceptive practices. We urge all Trust Music users to adhere to the law and the terms of service of streaming platforms. Engaging in artificial streams or stream fraud can have serious legal consequences, including fines and legal action. Let's maintain the integrity of the music industry and ensure fair and genuine streams for all artists. Thank you for your cooperation. Big thanks to the CEO of SonoSuite and the CEO of Trust Music Distribution for this proper set up and the verification which every user must verify their identity 🙏

This emphasizes the urgent need for implementing #IdentityVerification even within the #music sector. Fraudulent activities in the music industry are on the rise, as reported by Sky News, fraud groups are exploiting streaming services by uploading millions of songs while posing as legitimate artists, resulting in billions in stolen royalty payments. Shockingly, it is estimated that 10% of all streamed songs worldwide. https://lnkd.in/d557czQK #digitalidentity #biometrics #fraudprevention #idv

What’s with all news sites going behind paywalls. How many subscriptions do they expect any person to pay for and manage? On top of that they keep pushing these links on Social Media where usually each post gets single digit likes. No wonder they are all struggling to stay afloat and have to resort to other ways to generate revenue, many times compromising the values they are built upon. Readers have umpteen ways to get access to news and with AI it will get harder for publishers to protect their turf. News publishers should be part of a single sign on service much like music streaming. If music industry could do it so can media. Else they will all perish cursing AI for their demise.

Fraudulent activity in the music industry is at an all time high. 🚨It was found in a study that 7% of artist profiles on platforms like Spotify had indications of fraudulent activity. 🚨Up to 3%-4% of global streaming traffic is estimated to be fraudulent. These streams are artificially increased through click farms, bots and other methods. 🚨An estimated $300 million to $1 billion in annual losses is attributed to streaming fraud, which takes revenue away from legitimate artists around the world. It is vital that distributors around the world implement new KYC compliance measures to avoid these bad players from negatively effecting the music industry. This will have massive negative effects on artist’s ability to make music and live off of their music. #fraud #streaming #musicindustry #KYC #independentartist

💿Music sales formats analytics📈 Github link https://lnkd.in/exdaBuFH In this project, which I initiated thanks to Nikita Fordui, I'm visualising, whether on average, streaming services 📱 bring more revenue to the artists, compared to traditional(in the past) mediums, like CD-s 💿 or casettes. As we can see, not even close. Here is fuller output, the dataset is for US music sales formats(in dollars annually, inflation adjusted, because physical mediums peaked sales decades ago): CD: 6,361,193,478 Cassette: 2,132,508,696 LP/EP(aka vinyl):1,954,900,000 Paid Subscription: 336,402,174 On-Demand Streaming (w/Ads): 69,356,522 Limited Tier Paid Subscription: 35,406,522 P.S. Huge thanks to Throwback Thursday from Kaggle https://lnkd.in/euxYQtV8 #spotify #streaming #cd #entertainment #music #sales #listening

Intrigued by fake account use in music streaming fraud? The Denmark case, revealing a $290,000 scam, underscores the need for technology like Pasabi's detection tools. Platforms like Spotify can leverage our interface to identify and highlight bad actors, recognising the source with the added advantage of our external oversight and continual moderation. Such innovations are vital for combatting fraud, protecting artists, and maintaining platform integrity. Interested in a no-strings-attached audit of how this can work for you? Give me a shout! #MusicFraud #TechInMusic #fakeaccounts #streaming WIRED https://lnkd.in/eyYtkByy

Lots of interesting information here