Fraud streaming will result in streaming revenue being held, the takedown of music from services in many cases, and can potentially lead to the removal and blocking of guilty RouteNote accounts.

Fraud streaming is what it says on the tin, the illegitimate – i.e. fraudulent – streaming of music on digital services like Spotify and Apple Music. We at RouteNote and our streaming partners take cases of fraud streaming very seriously; so it’s good to know what it is, what happens to users who do it, and why we don’t tolerate it.

What does FSA mean?

FSA stands for Fraud Streaming Activity. It is the tag given to releases and users that have been detected for fraud streaming.

What is Fraud Streaming?

There are a number of ways people can fraud stream: setting up multiple accounts to listen to music, playing tracks on repeat without listening to them, using bots to stream music lots, and others.

As with any case of fraud, all FSA is illegal. Streaming services are very good at detecting suspicious activity and when they do they will take the appropriate action.

What happens to releases flagged for FSA?

In every case of fraud streaming, the revenues will be blocked for that release. All of the money earnt fraudulently has not been legally earned and so the service will hold back those funds. Revenue from any genuine streams on a fraud streamed release can still be earned in most cases.

Whilst it isn’t always the case, a release that has been detected for fraud streaming will often be taken down from the streaming service.

What happens to RouteNote accounts found to be fraud streaming?

We like to give people a chance to learn from their mistakes and redeem their behaviour. After finding fraud streaming on accounts, we often won’t remove the RouteNote account but we will be sure to keep an extra special eye on the releases coming through that account.

If someone is found to be a repeat offender of fraud streaming then we will take action to close their account and prevent them from uploading music through our services.

What if an FSA isn’t the fault of the user?

It’s not always the case that fraud streaming activity is being done by the user themselves. Unfortunately all cases of FSA are treated the same and once action has been taken it can’t be undone by the stores.

If you’ve been a victim of fraud streaming it’s important to find out why your music is being fraud streamed to prevent the issue from re-occurring on your music. Be aware of dodgy promotion websites which will fraud stream music under the guise of boosting your listens naturally.

Our support team are on hand to help in all cases at support@routenote.com or by getting in touch via a Support Ticket from your RouteNote account.