Music Business

Spotify, Soundcloud Bot Farms Continue To Manipulate Streaming Numbers

Buy Spotify PlaysBot farms continue to manipulate streaming stats on Spotify and Soundcloud, a year after the streamers and music industry became aware of them, multiple sources tell Hypebot. The bots, which target these two services because they offer free access, are available both home-brewed and professionally marketed.

Bots targeted Spotify as early as 2015, but the industry became aware of their widespread use earlier this year when after a MBW expose revealed that two Bulgarian based playlists filled with hundreds of tracks by unknown artists had sucked $1 million or more out of the Spotify royalty pool. 

8 months after the story broke, bots continue to manipulate streams on both Spotify and Soundcloud, with the streamers and the industry seemingly unable or unwilling to stop them.

12 months ago, Hypebot revealed that music bot providers were using YouTube as a marketing channel, gaining tens of thousands of views. Those same videos are still available on YouTube and a new bot how-to video posted just four months ago has been viewed more that 33,000 times.

Some bots are run by commercial services selling guaranteed streams. Others come from developers like somiibo which offers bots for Spotify, Soundcloud alongside bots that deliver likes and followers Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other social media services. 

This intro video of the somiibo Soundcloud bot shows its scope:

Here is a video of one of the hardest type of music bot farms in action, courtesy of Australia's Industry Observer.

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10 Comments

  1. This is by far one of the biggest detriments that comes with the advent of streaming. I wonder how inflated certain artists’ certifications are now that fake streams seem so easy to obtain.

  2. I am writing an assignment about Spotify, Soundcloud Bot Farms and I found an interesting information about it. More Info about assignment.
    (Hypebot) — Bot farms continue to manipulate streaming stats on Spotify and Soundcloud, a year after the streamers and music industry became aware of them, multiple sources tell Hypebot. The bots, which target these two services because they offer free access, are available both home-brewed and professionally marketed.

  3. Don’t displaying the number of streams to the public and it’ll stop. This world we live in is so caught up in the number of streams, likes, fans, comments, views, etc. Go outside and enjoy real life!

  4. as artist i got rejected from dozens of gigs because MY STREAMING NUMBERS AREN’T ENOUGH TO BE BOOKED. Real words from many promoters in my country. That’s why this stupid battle of plays, just to get more gigs and make a fake career…

  5. It’s always about going outside, isn’t it. You know there’s actually productive things you can do on the interior of a building? And who says people making music don’t enjoy life, or that their life isn’t “real life”? Pretty arrogant.

  6. The bots don’t care of the number of streams, they care of payout per stream. So to prevent them, you need a change in the payout-system.
    For example: No payouts for streams from free accounts. Payouts not per stream but per user streaming a track. The latter one is more realistic towards selling a track to a person and not caring on how many times they listen to it.

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