You're probably wondering if the latest Instagram follower is a robot or a fake profile. The question is, are you quite capable of figuring out when an artist is fake and using you to make money fraudulently? It's more common than you think.
Streaming farms are a relatively new concept and were created to specifically take advantage of streaming platforms such as Spotify. Similar to like farms where robots or workers artificially inflate social media values, such as likes and followers, streaming farms artificially inflate the number of listens to a song.
How a streaming farm works
The most surprising thing about them is that if you know what you're doing, they're relatively easy to do. In a Vice article, one of their journalists, William Bedell, managed to create his own streaming farm that simulates thousands of fake listeners. However, William is not an ordinary hacker who is used to doing such things, so this proves how easy it is.
But if you are not very technical, then you will think that streaming farms are reserved for the best criminal gangs. Unfortunately, if you do a quick search on Google, it's actually very easy to find a number of websites that offer thousands of listeners at a cheap price.
And if you know where to look, you can probably find a robot already made to generate as many listeners as you want.
Not only do these streaming farms generate money for artists for every "fake" listening they receive, but they also influence a number of other things. If a song gets enough listeners, it can sometimes reach popular playlists and the trends section to attract real listeners.
Since streaming farms are very easy to build and rent, their presence has a huge effect on Spotify and their profits. After years of keeping a well-known secret, everyone is suddenly using streaming farms to make more money, to increase their visibility and to get their attention on their songs. But as streaming farms become more popular, how does Spotify fight?
Spotify security
First, accounts can be compromised. It is the nature of things. As a matter of fact, the company said in a statement that "we treat all fraudulent activities in our service extremely seriously" and urged users to protect themselves by refraining from using the same username and password in different accounts. disturbing, when they are not disturbing, but are often impersonal. You don't usually think about someone's hacker too often.
This seems less true when it comes to music. When a Spotify account is hacked, you can see the music the hacker has chosen, either on the hacker's device or sometimes, probably by accident, on your device. Thus, a portrait of the hacker is drawn.
Second, Spotify doesn't offer 2-step authentication! I know, it sounds unbelievable that a company of this level doesn't offer more forms of user protection. We are not talking about a small company, but about a technology giant that has all the resources to secure its platform.
Even those who choose to pay for the premium version do not have the 2FA function.
In 2020, a user asked on the official Spotify Community website "why isn't there two-step authentication on Spotify?"
"I've had to change my unique Spotify password for the fourth time since I decided to buy the premium version, and I'm very upset with the way hacked accounts / paying customers are treated with insecure accounts where people put their card information ", Added the user named Franic.
Spotify Response? Quiet…
Almost two years have passed since that question, and people are still complaining that their accounts have been hacked.
Who said you can't make money from crime?
With very few detection methods, fake eavesdropping on Spotify has become a real industry. But not only thieves take advantage of the Spotify system, but normal troops also take advantage of Spotify without breaking any laws. Yes, T-Pain, YG, French Montana and even Justin Bieber take advantage of the Swedish company's algorithm loophole.
A band called Vulfpeck won $ 20,000 from a silent album released in an effort to raise money for them to go on tour. The band released a 5 minute album consisting of 10 songs ranging from 31 to 32 seconds. All of these songs were completely silent, and the band encouraged their fans to listen to them on Spotify. The result was that the band earned $ 20,000 royalties on their album before it was removed from Spotify, although it was never specified why. The band did not use any streaming farms or robots to listen to their songs, however, the band took advantage of the Spotify system to earn money.
What does the future hold?
The use of robots or click farms rarely focuses on making money from fake auditions. Using robots means gaining attention by falsifying attention until it turns into real attention. In some ways, it's not so different from Soulja Boy uploading his songs to Limewire, disguised as hit songs. In fact, the phenomenon of attracting attention has existed in almost all forms of entertainment dating back to the nineteenth century. "Claques", the name given to people paid to loudly applaud performers at the great French opera, is a well-known first example.
If this information scares you, the best thing to do is not pay attention to these artists, whether the attention is positive or negative. Because using robots and scams to generate a false "hype" helps some artists to reach fame faster, in the end, the attention, the renderings and the money of the artists who are trying to build a fan base honestly are stolen.
Will Spotify react and try to secure its platform? Probably not, because even if it clashes with what I said earlier, it all comes down to money, and the real money makes it the streaming platform.