What does an FSA / fraud streaming claim mean?
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.
So what you’re saying is if I don’t like an artist on RouteNote I can just artificially stream their music and get it removed? Sweet.
Hi Bob, nope because Spotify will investigate and they’ll be able to find the account(s) responsible for the fraud streams.
So basically an Artist who’s music was promoted by one of the biggest Metal vocalist on the planet is somehow faking streams?
When Randy Blyhte from Lamb Of God promotes your song, there is a really good chance people will stream it.
What if we don’t feel that we have faked our stream and then suddenly our song has been deleted from the music store, is there a way to make our song available again in the music store?
Hey,
Apologies for any inconvenience!
Please reach out to our support team, with your UPC and we will look into this for you. – https://routenote.com/contact
You say an artist would set up multiple accounts to listen to music, play tracks repeatedly without listening, etc. But tell me how much does that cost? Doesn’t the artist have to pay for the internet and electricity for it? And it’s certainly time consuming too. Surely it would cost a lot more than the eventual revenue. From my experience the earnings are a joke for having so much trouble creating multiple accounts etc. That’s ridiculous.
One of our tracks, coincidentally the track that creates the most revenue, because it’s an original track written and produces by us, and our revenue has been cut down by 50%. If streaming music on repeat is counted as fraud, then everyone need to go apologize to their favorite artists right away, because the artist isn’t paid correctly. Spotify has already investigated this issue for us, and said that no fraud was detected from them, so RouteNote is the one holding back streams. Should we pull the song? Should we bargain? Exactly what will you have us do? Will the revenue forever be frozen? Will it be paid at some point? Will RouteNote keep it? Exactly what will happen? Because we’re not being given any tangible answers.
Hey,
Please note that we would only freeze or withhold payments in cases where our Terms and Conditions have been violated. The main circumstances where this might happen would be if the user has fraudulently streamed the music (used bots or similar to get false views and royalties), or if they have been involved with copyright infringement (stolen music or uploaded content without appropriate rights).
Please get in touch with us via your registered email or create a Support Ticket through your RouteNote account dashboard so that we can look into your particular case and discuss this further – we’ll get back to you ASAP.
I got a reply from RN bot telling me that an unspecified release of mine was being streamed by a bot and an unspecified partner was very serious about that. I looked at the issue myself and found a specific song of mine had been added to a ‘dodgy’ playlist without my knowledge. Somewhere in Finland, I think. I looked at their site and of course, they say they would keep the release streaming if money was paid. We ignored all this & the song was out of the playlist. Now, I reasonably understand the royalty issue about those streams but I reckon the issue comes from RN itself or the streaming partner. How could we get picked up otherwise without our knowledge? I think RN should alert us artists when something like this is happening. Or the streaming partner (in my case, Spotify) should perhaps also alert us so we can act accordingly. And definitely, RN should deal in a personal manner not via a bot. It took many long weeks to get to the bottom of this because it was bot after bot answer. Very displeased with the handling of the issue that was not caused by us. Very much hope a real person reads this and maybe use the feedback for improvement.
Hey,
RouteNote does not use bots, all support tickets, emails, and contact form requests are answered by members of the support team. Please could you provide us with your ticket number and we will look into this further for you.
I want to know if i can still claim my YouTube artist official channel with another track after routenote rejected track that was artificially streamed
Hey,
If content on your account has been associated with any fraudulent streaming activity, our support team will be unable to process channel upgrades for you at this time.
What if I didn’t pay, nor ask anyone to fraudulently stream my music? I literally just woke up one day and my song was no longer online on ANY streaming platforms, while I was absolutely clueless as to why it happened (cause it takes forever to get a response from RN). I saw my streams going up in numbers on a particular song and I just assumed it was coming from the fanbase of another artist (with a much bigger fanbase than I) that I collaborated with recently. It didn’t surprise me that it was mostly that song since it’s one of few songs where I sing in English. I hope RN can figure this out!
Please contact support@routenote.com and we will look into this for you.
Hi Lucy,
This reply is useless, because when I contact support I don’t actually get any help or support. Just another another generic answer with no solutio .