00:00 Here's what a streaming farm looks like.
00:01 Also known as the black market of the music industry,
00:03 this is how some artists and labels distort reality to propel their songs
00:07 to the top of the rankings and earn more money.
00:09 Streaming farms use bots to artificially play music
00:12 on platforms like Spotify or Apple Music
00:14 in order to drastically increase the number of streams.
00:16 In March, a Dane was sentenced to 18 months in prison
00:18 for extorting $290,000 from royalties for fictitious streams.
00:22 But this rare case is only a glimpse of the extent of this fraud.
00:24 In 2019, the cost of streaming was estimated at $300 million a year
00:27 for artists with legitimate streams, which is 3 to 4% of all streams,
00:31 a much higher figure today.
00:32 According to a report by the Financial Times in 2023,
00:35 10% of all music streams in the world are fake.
00:37 Streaming services like Spotify are trying to fight these practices
00:40 by monitoring anomalies such as sudden listening issues
00:42 or prolonged rehearsals.
00:43 If a fraud is detected, they can retain the royalties,
00:46 inform the labels, remove the tracks from the platform,
00:48 and inflict fines.
00:49 However, some artists say they are targeted by bots
00:52 and unjustly punished as a result.
00:54 Apple Music has also penalized this fraud since 2022,
00:56 but in one way or another, people continue to steal from the royalties.
00:59 And with the progress of AI, the extent of this problem remains uncertain.
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