A person in Denmark was sentenced to 18 months in jail right now for utilizing faux accounts to trick music streaming companies into paying him 2 million Danish kroner ($290,000) in royalties. The uncommon case reveals a weak spot within the enterprise mannequin behind the world’s greatest music platforms.

The 53-year-old guide, who had pleaded not responsible, was convicted of information fraud and copyright infringement after utilizing bots to hearken to his personal music by faux profiles on each Spotify and Apple Music, gathering royalties within the course of. The information fraud befell between 2013 and 2019.

Fake or “artificial” streams are an enormous drawback for the streaming trade. Between 1 billion and three billion faux streams befell on standard music platforms in 2021, in keeping with a study by France’s National Music Center. Fake streams are an issue, in keeping with the music trade, as a result of they divert royalty funds away from actual artists and pollute streaming platforms’ information.

“This is an example of a problem that’s becoming a liability within the music industry,” says Rasmus Rex Pedersen, an affiliate professor in communication at Roskilde University in Denmark, who researches music streaming. “The streaming services have had several years to develop tools to combat this type of fraud and apparently they haven’t been doing a very good job.” There are nonetheless companies promoting gross sales of faux streams, he provides.

In February, a courtroom within the Danish metropolis of Aarhus heard how the person, whose identify was withheld, was accused of utilizing bots to generate a suspiciously excessive variety of performs on 689 tracks, which he had registered as his personal music. In one week, 244 music tracks had been listened to five.5 million instances, with 20 accounts accountable for almost all of the streams. The defendant had beforehand argued these playbacks had been linked to his job within the music trade. He plans to enchantment, his lawyer Henrik Garlik Jensen instructed WIRED.

The man created software program that performed the music robotically, claims Maria Fredenslund, CEO of the Danish Rights Alliance, which protects copyright on the web and first reported the case to the police. “So he didn’t really listen to the music. No one really listened to the music.” According to the Danish Rights Alliance, the defendant had 69 accounts with music streaming companies, together with 20 with Spotify alone. Due to his community of accounts, he was at one level the forty sixth highest-earning musician in Denmark.

While the defendant created a lot of the music himself, 37 tracks had been altered variations of Danish folks music, the place the tempo and pitch had been modified, provides Fredenslund, who attended courtroom.

Starting in 2016, Danish artists seen altered variations of their tracks circulating on streaming platforms. They reported the suspicious exercise to Koda, a Danish group that collects and distributes charges for songwriters and composers when their music is performed on-line. In an investigation, Koda uncovered how quantities paid to the guide went from zero to substantial sums in a short while. Koda then reported the case to the Danish Rights Alliance, which investigates fraudulent habits. “It’s not just immoral, but blatantly unfair to manipulate payments that should rightfully go to dedicated and hardworking music creators,” says Jakob Hüttel, authorized chief at Koda.