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In the Swedish coverage they also identified bot farms that are actively used for this purpose. So it's a bit more than hearsay.
by styren 3y ago
In the Swedish coverage they also identified bot farms that are actively used for this purpose. So it's a bit more than hearsay.
- ansc 3y agoBot farms is wildly different than money laundering.
- lawlessone 3y agoYeah it isn't clear how they are doing it. Are they using fake accounts with paid membership or free accounts? Both are ineficient but the latter is way more inefficient
- styren 3y agoThey are using bitcoin (dirty money) to buy Spotify plays (clean money)
- mjr00 3y agoBotted plays are definitely real, but not typically used like this. Typically the scam for botted plays is either someone straight up selling stream purchases i.e. "buy Spotify 10000 plays for $10" or using them to boost perceived legitimacy. You would do the latter with a typical label scam, where you contact someone on Soundcloud, saying you are XXX Record Label and you want to sign their track, linking to XXX Record Label's Spotify account which shows impressive play numbers. You "sign" the track but then request a $50 "mastering fee" from the artist before release. In either case, Spotify (usually, afaik) doesn't pay out for the actual botted streams, but it doesn't matter. The money is made by the scammer from the artist.