Fake Streams Are Stealing From Real Rappers. The Copyright Office Wants to Hear About It by Nov. 23

If you're an independent rapper or R&B singer, here's something that should make you mad: every fake stream on a streaming service takes a slice of money out of the same pool your real streams are paid from. And the federal government is finally asking how bad it is.

What's happening

The U.S. Copyright Office opened a public inquiry into music streaming fraud with a notice published in the Federal Register on Oct. 7. Written comments are due by 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 23, and reply comments by Dec. 21, submitted through regulations.gov, according to the notice.

The inquiry came out of a May 21 letter from U.S. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, who asked the office to "examine the prevalence of streaming fraud across digital platforms and how it may be affecting the music industry as a whole," the notice says.

What streaming fraud is

The notice quotes a definition from the Music Fights Fraud Alliance: "the illegitimate practice of using deceptive, inappropriate, or unpermitted methods to artificially increase the number of streams a song or album receives."

It lists the methods: bot farms, click farms, playlist stuffing, account hijacking, and "unethical marketing companies." It also describes "copyright fraud," which includes claiming other people's work or uploading manipulated versions of it, sometimes called "carbon copying" or "ghost tracking."

Why it hits independent artists hardest (analysis)

This is my analysis. The notice says the primary harm is "the dilution of the royalty revenue pool." Most streaming money is paid out of a pool, split by share of streams. When a bot farm pumps up fake plays, the pool doesn't get bigger. Everybody else's share gets smaller.

A major-label star can absorb that. An independent artist in Dorchester or Roxbury, counting on a few thousand dollars a year from streams, can't.

The notice lists the secondary harms too: skewing where songs land on playlists and in algorithms, "distorting the [streaming] data artists and venues use to make key business decisions," including "when and where to tour," and "reduc[ing] the likelihood of music fans discovering talented, lesser-known artists." That last one is the one that hurts. Fake numbers bury real talent.

How big the money is

The stakes are huge. The notice cites RIAA figures putting U.S. streaming revenue for recordings at about $9.5 billion, and about $22 billion globally per IFPI. U.S. music publishing revenue was about $7.3 billion, per the NMPA.

It also points to the case of Michael Smith, a North Carolina man indicted by the Justice Department who, the notice says, created thousands of bot accounts to stream his uploaded songs and fraudulently collected some $10 million in royalties. The notice cites the federal indictment in that case.

What the government is asking

The Copyright Office lists 10 questions. Among them: how fraud is executed, which industry practices "may be inadvertently contributing" to it, how fraud relates to AI-generated music, whether a shared database of known fraud would help, and whether legislation for "no-fault injunctive relief" could be used. It also asks how criminal enforcement could do better, including "uses of streaming fraud by organized crime."

One group's answer

The Artist Rights Institute has prepared comments arguing checks should happen before recordings ever reach streaming services, InterSpace Daily reported. Its pitch: "Know the customer. Know the content. Follow the money." The group wants distributors to verify uploaders, ownership claims and who ultimately gets paid, and argues flat-fee distributors lack an incentive to vet users, according to the report.

My take (opinion)

My opinion: if you make music, you should file a comment. It's free, and it's your money. Tell them what you've seen: fake playlist offers, stolen songs re-uploaded under other names, "promo" services that got your track flagged. The people who profit from fraud have every reason to show up in this process. Artists should show up louder. If only labels, distributors and tech companies file, the final report will reflect their priorities, not yours.

What we still don't know

What the Copyright Office will recommend to Congress, when, and whether Congress acts on it. The notice says the comments, with the office's own research, "may contribute to Congress's understanding" of the problem. That's a start, not a fix.