Music Platforms Unite to Form Industry-Wide Anti-Fraud Alliance, “Music Fights Fraud”

Founding Members Include Digital Music Companies CD Baby and its parent company Downtown, TuneCore and its parent company Believe, DistroKid, UnitedMasters, Symphonic, EMPIRE, and Vydia as well as Digital Service Providers Spotify and Amazon Music

The National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance – a neutral third party – will operationalize protocol for the centralized prevention of cross-platform streaming fraud, currently costing the industry hundreds of millions of dollars each year

June 14th, 2023 – Digital music companies CD Baby and its parent company Downtown, TuneCore and its parent company Believe, DistroKid, UnitedMasters, Symphonic, EMPIRE, and Vydia along with digital service providers Spotify and Amazon Music, today announced they have come together in an unprecedented alliance to form Music Fights Fraud, a global task force aimed at eradicating streaming fraud. Music Fights Fraud represents the first time all corners of the music industry have aligned as a united front to combat fraud in music streaming.

Music Fights Fraud will focus on streaming fraud and streaming manipulation across digital streaming services and will work to ensure that the global music streaming market is fair and that all members actively contribute to solutions intended to balance the equity of its operations. The objectives of Music Fights Fraud are to detect, prevent, mitigate and enforce anti-fraud measures, thereby moving closer to an industry where fraud has no place.

The members of the Music Fights Fraud alliance will provide greater cross-platform collaboration and data sharing in coordination with a third party, the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA), a nonprofit partnership between private organizations, government, and academia. The NCFTA’s mission is to provide a neutral, trusted environment enabling multi-party collaboration to identify, mitigate, and disrupt cyber crime. This will ultimately create a healthier music industry where genuine content creators are able to thrive.

The founding members of Music Fights Fraud are all strong advocates for artists’ rights. Each participating company has instituted internal measures to contend with fraud and, by creating this task force, is ultimately creating a healthier music industry where genuine content creators are able to thrive. It has been estimated that industry-wide, streaming abuse could account for hundreds of millions of dollars lost each year.1 Streaming abuse, encompassing bots, streaming click farms, and imposters, impacts all artists – both self-released and those signed to labels. It affects the music industry by diluting the royalty pool, reducing revenue for legitimate streams, and slowing the approval and release process for creators.

1 Billboard: Why Can’t Music Fix Its Fake Streams Problem

Music Fights Fraud is a self-governing association with future membership subject to approval by its members. Parties interested in joining Music Fights Fraud can find more information at www.musicfightsfraud.com. Additional companies will be announced shortly.