Real humans don’t stream Drake songs 23 hours a day, rapper suing Spotify says

Proposed class action may force Spotify to pay back artists harmed by streaming fraud.

See full article...

 

[meisanerd]

Whose paying for the bots though? I would think a spotify subscription and bot services would cost more than what is made from streaming.

Stolen Credit Cards,

 

[Jeremie-Allen Kristopher David Ha III]

Seems like half the entire tech economy is lies, fraud and dicking people over, and no one cares because the stocks make them money. [Grumble grumble...]

I can’t name a single major tech company over the past 25 years that did not turn into something shitty and or mildly evil. Every single scrappy little startup I’ve ever seen that made promises to “be different“ eventually sold out to bigger companies who then enshitified it.

I’d like to see the entire tech economy implode to be honest.

 

[keltor]

If the allegations are generally true, who's behind the botnets? The only two parties standing to benefit from all this effort set up fake streams would be Drake and Spotify, no?

One thing that's important to note about "botnets", they will say be targeting someone "Spiffy G" to prop his numbers up, but they will ALSO stream Drake ... this is typically how they avoid detection. Drake may have been a common choice for some major botnet vendor, Drake may have never been their target at all, they just did it to avoid Spotify's detection system.

 

[Jeremie-Allen Kristopher David Ha III]

A lot of companies, especially in the tech sphere, operate on a "we iterate so fast that nobody can keep up or regulate us"

Ask for forgiveness, not permission.

This allows them to normalize a lot of really wild behavior and activity. It can take years before anyone notices something and by then it's deemed "business as usual".

Look at Meta facilitating genocide in several countries. They do it, then go "Oh oops, totally oops. But also there isn't much we can do about it because we've never bothered to do anything about it"

Which is why they should not be iterating so fast. big tech is going to destroy this country And every other country on earth.

 

[baloroth]

I can’t name a single major tech company over the past 25 years that did not turn into something shitty and or mildly evil. Every single scrappy little startup I’ve ever seen that made promises to “be different“ eventually sold out to bigger companies who then enshitified it.

I’d like to see the entire tech economy implode to be honest.

Not exactly tech, but Valve is a notable exception. Apple too, as much as I don't like them personally, have avoided most of the evil paths (except the walled garden which isn't really evil per se). I think though you've kinda accidentally cherry-picked with the word "major". Selling out is the way a company becomes a major player.

If we had a decent anti-trust enforcement, maybe things would be different. Capitalism only works at all of you have genuine competition, and you don't get that when the major players just buy out any competition smaller than themselves.

 

[42Kodiak42]

There's an interesting point of comparison if they want to compare bot-usage behavior and natural human usage: Steam game usage stats.
For a bit of background context, a combination of a few specific attributes, namely a game being free-to play with regular steam-inventory drops, leads to gameplay usage behavior being dominated by bot-activity. One of the bigger examples here is Unturned*, and the particular sign that you want to look for are people getting on and getting off in large blocks that seem to ignore typical day and weekly cycles.

What the plaintiffs want to look for are those on/off blocks and usage patterns that seem to ignore the daily/weekly patterns that other music is subject to.

*It's important to point out that this sort of bot behavior is not controlled/bought by the targeted game, but rather independent operators who are trying to make money off of free-steam-inventory drops.

 

[TylerH]

Whose paying for the bots though? I would think a spotify subscription and bot services would cost more than what is made from streaming.

It's free accounts, not paid accounts. The article mentions that a lot of the fraudulent activity would be prevented by simply requiring a credit card to sign up even with a free account.

 

[TylerH]

I stream Spotify almost non-stop at home (although not exclusively Drake, but I could if I wanted). Mostly for background noise (podcasts or music lists created over the years) during the day and thunderstorm sounds while sleeping. There are days where I get on a Pearl Jam kick and it's all I stream...could be days of that.

I would say that quite a few humans can and probably do stream 23 hours a day.

This might be believable if it were not a single artist, and were only occasional/intermittent (rather than all day every day) and not occurring in geo-independent IP addresses, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

 

[ComradeMatis]

And here I am buying individual CDs because the idea of paying a subscription for the rest of my life so I can listen to the same music over and over again is a giant rip off but then again Spotify and other services providers have convinced an entire generation that paying per month is better than physical media. Regarding fake streaming etc. this has been an issue for years, people uploading blank files, uploading gibberish then getting bots to stream.

 

[Granadico]

Taylor Swift would probably get more money if this Swiftie mega-fan went out and bought, like, one album at retail, and it would save a lot of internet bandwidth.

This reminds me of a family member who loved the Friday movie(s) and when it was announced that Friday was leaving the service in a month or two, watched the movie as many times as possible before it left. It would have been cheaper to just buy a used DVD and used Netflix the way it was intended.

Challenge accepted.

Where's that dude who listened to the same Linkin Park song like 15000 times.

 

[Graith]

Not exactly tech, but Valve is a notable exception. Apple too, as much as I don't like them personally, have avoided most of the evil paths (except the walled garden which isn't really evil per se). I think though you've kinda accidentally cherry-picked with the word "major". Selling out is the way a company becomes a major player.

If we had a decent anti-trust enforcement, maybe things would be different. Capitalism only works at all of you have genuine competition, and you don't get that when the major players just buy out any competition smaller than themselves.

Valve is a lot better than other companies, but they're by no means saints. Dean Hall (of DayZ) and other developers have complained about preferential treatment on Steam (that Valve denies) for large publishers over smaller and independent developers.

 

[Chmilz]

Taylor Swift would probably get more money if this Swiftie mega-fan went out and bought, like, one album at retail, and it would save a lot of internet bandwidth.

It's a parasocial relationship / mental illness.

 

[scrimbul]

Am I reading this correctly? There is a finite pool of cash for a month (or something), and if one person does really well, other people get less? It's a method so blatantly open to fraud I can't quite believe it.

Seems like half the tech economy is lies, fraud and dicking people over, and no one cares because the stocks make them money. [Grumble grumble...]

The larger economy along with the government of a lot of nations have devolved into one giant ongoing shitpost, I would assume fixing the cost of living issues large corporations seem intent to inflict on the entire globe with an equally large and pervasive shitpost is the actual counter.

Therein lies the problem, the realization that a shitpost is unserious until it is no longer unserious, but also that everyone that catches on to the grift believes it should be their God-given right to shitpost until they make it AND suppress everyone else's shitposting at the same time.

Generally speaking only deplatforming truly silences shitposting and at the scale I'm referring to, that often requires a pyrrhic economic collapse and a concerted effort to vindictively ensure none of the rich can play the market of the collapse to retain enough capital to start a new shitpost katamari out of the Internet and real world economies.

I'm starting to wonder if it shouldn't be the working class against the content creators as shorthand to get the pitchforks out for corporations and venture capital backing the content creators long-term for a century. I realize not discriminating between content creators in this regard isn't exactly great now that cable TV is on the brink of collapse and traditional media doesn't have much life past the fall of cable TV, but...

 

[Daneel]

removing my comment as several others got there first.

 

[cosmotose]

I mean the alternative is pricing based on stream totals. If an artist gives Spotify 100k hours of listening time, they should get paid for that much listening time. Not "oh your hours are worth half as much this pay period because a big artist releases a new album."

Genuine question: what's the argument against or preventing Streaming services from similarly allocating an individual user's monthly subscription % based strictly on the Artists they actually listened to that month?

 

[Chmilz]

Valve is a lot better than other companies, but they're by no means saints. Dean Hall (of DayZ) and other developers have complained about preferential treatment on Steam (that Valve denies) for large publishers over smaller and independent developers.

Valve gets absurd praise considering they were instrumental in killing ownership and resale of PC games and are massive participants in online gambling - doubly evil because much of that gambling is directed at minors.

 

[EduSantos]

Whats the alternative? Current method makes the most sense to me. If I stream 10 hours of one artist, and 1 hour of another, then ~90% of the money I spend on spotify should probably go to the 1st artist.

Its not like this at all. All the hours of every account are added together before being split. However what you described is what Deezer wants to do: the money you pay is split only towards artists you listened to. The record companies are not having it.

 

[EduSantos]

Genuine question: what's the argument against or preventing Streaming services from similarly allocating an individual user's monthly subscription % based strictly on the Artists they actually listened to that month?

The record companies would loose some of the share, as indie artists would benefit. Deezer has been trying to do the model you described for years now.

 

[cosmotose]

removing my comment as several others got there first.

Perhaps paying out an individual user's monthly subscription % based strictly on the Artists they actually listened to? This position is somewhat complicated by existence of Free users which could see a Band making no money if all their listeners are broke. Its truly fascinating/mind numbing trying to consider all the variables!

 

[Danathar]

I was told by a self-described Swiftie mega-fan that they kept as many players as their account allowed (on mute) actively playing Taylor Swift 24/7 to pump her numbers because they felt she deserved it.

Some people are just messed up in the head.

Some is a larger number than one would think

 

[Fred Duck]

TIL that RBX looks more British than expected.

So we were giving money to people who were not putting out particularly Canadian music, who did not need it anyways.

What makes songs more Canadian? Can you give me an example of a particularly Canadian track?

Edit:
Ah, "The Lumberjack Song."

 

[jhodge]

It's free accounts, not paid accounts. The article mentions that a lot of the fraudulent activity would be prevented by simply requiring a credit card to sign up even with a free account.

Worldwide, there are a lot of people who don’t use credit cards.

 

[KingStudMuffin]

And here I am buying individual CDs because the idea of paying a subscription for the rest of my life so I can listen to the same music over and over again is a giant rip off but then again Spotify and other services providers have convinced an entire generation that paying per month is better than physical media. Regarding fake streaming etc. this has been an issue for years, people uploading blank files, uploading gibberish then getting bots to stream.

I think it depends on whether you think you'll continue to buy new music in the future. CDs in the 1980s and 1990s (in 1980s or 1990s money) cost then about what a month of Spotify costs in today's money. I was probably buying a couple dozen CDs a year so a streaming subscription would have been cheaper even ignoring the effects of inflation.

Yes, if you don't keep paying for your subscription, your music goes away, unlike with CDs, but continuing to build a collection to have access to new music also costs money.

 

[JustReadingArs]

Whose paying for the bots though? I would think a spotify subscription and bot services would cost more than what is made from streaming.

Did you read TFA?

It's free accounts, not paid accounts. The article mentions that a lot of the fraudulent activity would be prevented by simply requiring a credit card to sign up even with a free account.

Thanks @TylerH for explaining it!

For the people in the backseats...

Spotify could cut off a lot of this activity, RBX alleged, by ending its practice of allowing free ad-supported accounts to sign up without a credit card. But supposedly it doesn’t, because “Spotify has an incentive for turning a blind eye to the blatant streaming fraud occurring on its service,” the lawsuit said.

It's free. No credit card required.

 

[HiroTheProtagonist]

I think it depends on whether you think you'll continue to buy new music in the future. CDs in the 1980s and 1990s (in 1980s or 1990s money) cost then about what a month of Spotify costs in today's money. I was probably buying a couple dozen CDs a year so a streaming subscription would have been cheaper even ignoring the effects of inflation.

Yes, if you don't keep paying for your subscription, your music goes away, unlike with CDs, but continuing to build a collection to have access to new music also costs money.

Also doesn't help that music discovery these days is getting worse, between the "fake streams" and FM radio getting shut down or gobbled by conglomerates for yet more country/Christian music repeats. During the last 15 years streaming exposed me to incredible amounts of music, and I wouldn't have bought a tenth of the albums I have were it not an option.

 

[Octavus]

Also doesn't help that music discovery these days is getting worse, between the "fake streams" and FM radio getting shut down or gobbled by conglomerates for yet more country/Christian music repeats. During the last 15 years streaming exposed me to incredible amounts of music, and I wouldn't have bought a tenth of the albums I have were it not an option.

Just listen to KEXP.org for discovery as real humans play whatever they want.

 

[cosmotose]

The record companies would loose some of the share, as indie artists would benefit. Deezer has been trying to do the model you described for years now.

Makes sense why record companies wouldn't want this model! - With Live Music being such a difficult art form & perhaps one of the most critical fabrics of our society (rich & poor), this fight against big money (and seemingly declining local arts scene & total quantity of quality music coming out) feels like rare bipartisan opportunity where everybody kinda senses some form of artistic Rot to a point the government could successfully step in to force the hands of Major labels away from the local artists. If a mega pop star can't compete with local artists who capture larger majority of individual users' listening time then they shouldn't be considered pop stars anymore! At least until they get back to the recording studio and do something great to take back the spotlight!

Gosh this topic keeps me up at night! - I don't know the right answer but sure seems best to support the most vulnerable to give them best chance of taking flight under their own power

 

[Chinsukolo]

To me that actually sounds like a tip-off or other source. The accusations are so incredibly specific that there must be something backing them up.

Very interested to see what gets uncovered in this saga.

Almost like both net owner decided they weren't getting paid enough by Drake artist and said pay me more or I'll spill... And then found someone to spill to...

 

[Bad Monkey!]

TIL that RBX looks more British than expected.


What makes songs more Canadian? Can you give me an example of a particularly Canadian track?

Edit:
Ah, "The Lumberjack Song."

Two examples:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKLMI-vMGiE



View: https://youtu.be/ujv3LYVfj8o?si=kJZi81qQRBpR31Xr&t=52

 

[crepuscularbrolly]

I think it depends on whether you think you'll continue to buy new music in the future. CDs in the 1980s and 1990s (in 1980s or 1990s money) cost then about what a month of Spotify costs in today's money. I was probably buying a couple dozen CDs a year so a streaming subscription would have been cheaper even ignoring the effects of inflation.

Yes, if you don't keep paying for your subscription, your music goes away, unlike with CDs, but continuing to build a collection to have access to new music also costs money.

Buying sucks, now, too. An album may have multiple versions which may have substantial overlap. Like, the CD may have exclusive tracks, which are different from the exclusive tracks on the vinyl. And buying physical media, except from BandCamp, doesn’t even come with download codes, anymore.

 

[Distraction]

Valve gets absurd praise considering they were instrumental in killing ownership and resale of PC games and are massive participants in online gambling - doubly evil because much of that gambling is directed at minors.

There was no resale market for PC games. You couldn’t even return them to the store after they were opened.

Back on topic, Spotify has been the stingiest of the stingy music streaming services from day one. Musicians make a fraction of a cent per play on their service.

Any justification they’ve ever made for starving the artists was shown to be bullshit when they acquired Joe Rogan for $250 million.

 

[Kolotro]

I was told by a self-described Swiftie mega-fan that they kept as many players as their account allowed (on mute) actively playing Taylor Swift 24/7 to pump her numbers because they felt she deserved it.

Some people are just messed up in the head.

There are actual criminals and charlatans running the country, and you think ultra-passionate fans not harming anyone are messed up in the head? Wow. Just wow.

 

[Tinkiewinkle]

There are actual criminals and charlatans running the country, and you think ultra-passionate fans not harming anyone are messed up in the head? Wow. Just wow.

I don’t think “messed up in the head” is anywhere near strong enough to describe the people you’re talking about.

 

[SeanJW]

I was told by a self-described Swiftie mega-fan that they kept as many players as their account allowed (on mute) actively playing Taylor Swift 24/7 to pump her numbers because they felt she deserved it.

Some people are just messed up in the head.

As someone who is legally and thoroughly messed up in the head, that's insulting. Some people are just crazy.

 

[Lunakki]

Whose paying for the bots though? I would think a spotify subscription and bot services would cost more than what is made from streaming.

It doesn't require a subscription because Spotify has an ad-supported tier that doesn't even require a credit card being on file, as the article says.

 

[Lacedaemon]

Am I reading this correctly? There is a finite pool of cash for a month (or something), and if one person does really well, other people get less? It's a method so blatantly open to fraud I can't quite believe it.

Seems like half the tech economy is lies, fraud and dicking people over, and no one cares because the stocks make them money. [Grumble grumble...]

My take is that all of this is a downstream symptom of people wanting things online for free.

Nothing ad supported is going to be pretty when you look behind the curtain.

 

[Lacedaemon]

I can’t name a single major tech company over the past 25 years that did not turn into something shitty and or mildly evil. Every single scrappy little startup I’ve ever seen that made promises to “be different“ eventually sold out to bigger companies who then enshitified it.

I’d like to see the entire tech economy implode to be honest.

Closest I can come is the Signal Foundation or Wikipedia. Not sure they meet the threshold for major in this context though.

 

[scortiusthecharioteer]

I can't help but wonder who's actually behind this, because I refuse to believe it's RBX lol

View attachment 121502

that is the wildest part of this story for me as well lol. This lawsuit brought to you by the Narrator RBX - Cell Block 2.

 

[bigchungus]

Am I reading this correctly? There is a finite pool of cash for a month (or something), and if one person does really well, other people get less? It's a method so blatantly open to fraud I can't quite believe it.

Seems like half the tech economy is lies, fraud and dicking people over, and no one cares because the stocks make them money. [Grumble grumble...]

NGL, I worked not too long ago for a silicon valley tech company and when I got there (first real security team), I discovered we would not implement certain basic MFA and other types of customer verification controls because of the known impact it would have on subscriber numbers. These companies don't even try to hide it internally, this information is fairly well known.