Interesting investigative report about streaming music scam on Saving Country Music.com.
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WOW, that's a lot of money going into the wrong hands. The question is how does one stop it? I'll bet that many of these sites are off-shore and I hope that there is some way to punish them.
Personally I would put them in solitary confinement have force them to listen to Tiny Tim 24/7/365.
My, my, my...
Very interesting.
112 artists, $1,500 a week, do the math. I know it's not as simple as that some are getting a higher percentage of than others but still not much for each one. It's hard enough already to make any money in the streaming world then to add insult to injury to have that paltry income stolen?
The funny thing is years ago I read an article about how to generate more streams online and I can't remember the details but one way was to create dozens of individual accounts under different names, manipulate the playlist thing and other tricks. The article wasn't about stealing anything it was about basically scamming these streaming platforms to your advantage.
As to enforcement, these platforms are so huge and their staffing relatively small and they're all independent of each other there's no way to coordinate all that.
Bob
Two points stood out to me.
First point is all the fake artist accounts were created through an independent music distribution service, DistroKid. Once identified DistroKid investigated and closed a fraudulent account.
The second point is more troubling. The free Shazam app was the main tool used to identify the stolen songs and artists. Really? No wonder the music industry is failing.