It’s estimated that almost 10% of streams are fraudulent. We have the Swedish example of criminal gangs laundering money via “fake” streams, and cases such as the Bad Dog fraud, highlighted in the New York Times. A former Spotify employee in the audience appeared to think the onus lies with the distributors. I suggested a more rigorous identification procedures of uploaders, and the distributors said they’ve formed a working group where they can share information on bad actors, in order to prevent them simply jumping from one distributor to another.

@helienne Has a Serious Panel Discussion with Spotify, Deezer and WMG Reps About Artist Centric, Streaming Fraud and the New Free Goods – Music Technology Policy

Here is another interesting paragraph:

Lucian Grainge called those having an issue with his royalty distribution model “merchants of garbage” (great band name, by the way), and a couple of my fellow panelists said the threshold would get rid of “the garbage”. I find using that term about music quite offensive. Also, haven’t we been told for a decade that one of the great things with streaming is that it got rid of the gatekeepers? What happened to that “long tail” that was going to make it a more level playing field? I especially find the minimum threshold of having to have 500 unique listeners every month problematic. This favours those who have the marketing powers to continuously get featured on editorial playlists with unengaged lean-back listeners over those who have a smaller but highly engaged fan following. 500 unique listeners every month may not sound like a lot but try to get 500 people showing up at your gigs, and you’ll realise it is.