Streaming Fraud Threatens More Than Fraudsters. We Must Find Meaningful Solutions (Guest Column) 

The article argues that streaming fraud diverts royalties from songwriters and other legitimate rights holders, and that artificial intelligence is making the problem larger. It says the issue should be addressed as part of the upcoming US proceedings on songwriter streaming rates, and frames fraud as both an industry concern and a potential national security risk.

The article cites a US case in which Michael Smith used hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to produce billions of streams and was sentenced to 18 months in prison. It also reports Apple Music found two billion fraudulent streams in 2025, while Deezer said 90,000 fully AI-generated tracks were uploaded daily and up to 85% of their streams were artificial. It calls for streaming services to exclude fraudulent plays from royalty calculations, as Deezer does, and describes reported uses of fake streams for money laundering and to influence prediction-market trades.