4 ms·

It's quite clear to me that this s a fraud to make money. Those tracks are produced by algorithms and played via access tokens gathered from sites like the play

It's quite clear to me that this s a fraud to make money. Those tracks are produced by algorithms and played via access tokens gathered from sites like the playlist converters floating around. Be wary of your account data and check the access of 3rd party apps regularly. https://support.spotify.com/uk/account_payment_help/privacy/revoke-access-from-3rd-party-app/ https://support.spotify.com/uk/account_payment_help/privacy/... for information how to do that for Spotify.

usrusr 8y ago
I wonder if those tracks have actually been played or if someone just found a way to game the play counters. Lesson for anyone who ponders the idea of open monetization models (the every-popular vision of giving X per month and having it automatically split up and distributed to creators proportionally to actual consumption): there will be bad actors trying to cheat. PS: why is your username so perfectly on topic?
- HelenePhisher 8y ago
  Haha, yeah, it really is! ;) The other one is a good question as well. Spotify pays out when a song has been listened to for at least 30 seconds. This has been abused in the past as well: https://qz.com/1212330/a-bulgarian-scheme-scammed-spotify-for-1-million-without-breaking-a-single-law/ https://qz.com/1212330/a-bulgarian-scheme-scammed-spotify-fo... The article says it is not clear if the fraudsters abused existing user accounts or set up a farm. But apparently, the songs have been played. They all were exactly 30 seconds long - this is the minimum play time for a song to qualify for a payout.
  - usrusr 8y ago
    > They all were exactly 30 seconds Talk about easy to spot! Maybe the defensive team is deliberately keeping their countermeasures low-profile (don't block anything except payout) to make it harder for attackers to iteratively adapt? Similar to the way shadowbanning is magnitudes more effective than banning.

usrusr 8y ago

I wonder if those tracks have actually been played or if someone just found a way to game the play counters. Lesson for anyone who ponders the idea of open monetization models (the every-popular vision of giving X per month and having it automatically split up and distributed to creators proportionally to actual consumption): there will be bad actors trying to cheat. PS: why is your username so perfectly on topic?

HelenePhisher 8y ago
Haha, yeah, it really is! ;) The other one is a good question as well. Spotify pays out when a song has been listened to for at least 30 seconds. This has been abused in the past as well: https://qz.com/1212330/a-bulgarian-scheme-scammed-spotify-for-1-million-without-breaking-a-single-law/ https://qz.com/1212330/a-bulgarian-scheme-scammed-spotify-fo... The article says it is not clear if the fraudsters abused existing user accounts or set up a farm. But apparently, the songs have been played. They all were exactly 30 seconds long - this is the minimum play time for a song to qualify for a payout.
- usrusr 8y ago
  > They all were exactly 30 seconds Talk about easy to spot! Maybe the defensive team is deliberately keeping their countermeasures low-profile (don't block anything except payout) to make it harder for attackers to iteratively adapt? Similar to the way shadowbanning is magnitudes more effective than banning.