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Isn't there potential here for a much more nefarious plan than merely earning revenue from fake listens? If you could do the same thing across a few services,
by mootothemax 11y ago
Isn't there potential here for a much more nefarious plan than merely earning revenue from fake listens?
If you could do the same thing across a few services, spreading the number listens out on a viral pattern, based on a bit of investment in highly marketable songs, it sounds like you could create a bedroom-singer rags-to-riches superstar story and potentially make millions upon millions.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoYes, I think you're on point with how the exploit could work. Just as reference, I do think the notion of "payola" is similar in practice - using avenues to represent an organic growth of interest, but achieved through alternate means.
- paulasmuth 11y agoA similar thing has happened in the past: >> "Gracia was selected to represented [sic] Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Run & Hide", produced and composed by David Brandes. After the German national pre-selection for the Eurovision Song Contest it was revealed that Brandes had bought thousands of his own CDs to ensure chart placement, a requirement of the ESC" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracia_Baur https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gracia_Baur
- mahouse 11y agoInstead of that pedantic "sic" you could have, you know, fixed the article.
- thedufer 11y agoCan you really call it a direct wrote at that point? [sic] is an accepted way to avoid integrity issues when quoting.
- nommm-nommm 11y agoOh this is a common way to get on the NY Times Bestsellers List. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Best_Seller_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_York_Times_Best_Seller...
- TeMPOraL 11y agoI think it's pretty well-known that it's an industry-standard practice. Also another point why I treat big classes of businesses as made of greedy dishonest bastards. See also: astroturfing, which is commonly accepted way of being a cheat on the Internet.
- mike_hearn 11y agoYouTube has had this problem, with people buying and selling video views. I remember that at one point YT did a sweep to remove fake views and quite a few videos uploaded by professional music studios did in fact drop a lot of views all at once. Whether they were actually purchasing views or whether they were innocent is an interesting question. Anyway I wouldn't worry. De-spamming websites is a well understood problem by this point. Spotify can build an anti-fraud team if such practices become widespread.