The music industry sees an urgent need for action in order to put a stop to scams with “fake streams” in this country. “We were the first to tackle this from Germany and successfully carried out a large number of procedures to curb such manipulations,” said the Chairman of the Board of the Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI), Florian Drücke, of the German Press Agency in Berlin.
Fake streams, click fraud
This is happening “because we as an industry cannot watch and accept how trust in this marketplace is eroding”. That is why the association, which according to its own information represents around 200 producers and companies with around 80 percent share of the German music market, is “in an intensive exchange with artists and their managements”. For sustained success, “clear support for the platforms” against click fraud in by far the most important market segment of music streaming is necessary.
The BVMI had published legal successes against manipulation in the previous year. The Berlin Regional Court had issued an injunction against the operator of a website, which resulted in an omission. According to BVMI, the Germany-based website “offered the generation of fake streams that illegally increase the frequency with which a piece of music was actually heard via an audio streaming service”.
Continuous dispute over fair distribution of the proceeds
The international music industry umbrella organization IFPI emphasized at the time: “Those who create music must be paid fairly and correctly for their work and investments. This is prevented by the manipulation of streams – among other things, by damaging the accuracy of the charts and paying royalties Music makers are prevented. ” The “Fair Share Initiative” had previously denounced such manipulations.
In the ongoing dispute about a fair distribution of streaming revenues between artists, labels and music platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, the BVMI will continue to hold back. “As an industry association, we cannot intervene in business – not least for reasons of competition law,” said Drücke. “We are not at the negotiating table, we do not know the individual contracts and are not allowed to help shape them.” The members of the umbrella association are “certainly not the masters of the machines that use the platforms for their calculations”.
“Fair Share” is arguing with music labels to change the distribution of the streaming cake in favor of the artists. The aim of the initiative with figureheads like Peter Maffay or Sarah Connor: a more transparent distribution model that rewards the actual use of music (user-centered billing). In this way, the proceeds from each individual streaming subscription would be distributed to precisely those artists whose music the subscriber has listened to and would not end up in a large distribution pot.
(tiw)