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One Man’s Army of Streaming Bots Reveals a Whole Industry’s Problem

A rare case in Danish court shows how automated clicks and fake accounts can earn hundreds of thousands of dollars on Apple Music and Spotify. Experts say it’s the tip of the iceberg.

A man in Denmark was sentenced to 18 months in prison today for using fake accounts to trick music streaming services into paying him 2 million Danish kroner ($290,000) in royalties. In February, a court in the Danish city of Aarhus heard how the man, whose name was withheld, was accused of using bots to generate a suspiciously high number of plays on 689 tracks, which he had registered as his own music. The man created software that played the music automatically, claims Maria Fredenslund, CEO of the Danish Rights Alliance, which protects copyright on the internet and first reported the case to the police.

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