Streaming Fraud Campaigns Rely on AI Tools, Bots

Fraudsters are using generative AI to mass-produce royalty-eligible music and ghost artists to collect royalties, a development described in a Dark Reading feature on streaming fraud. The practice, termed streaming fraud, involves creating content at scale and generating large amounts of seemingly authentic traffic with fake engagement such as likes, views, comments and clicks, often powered by botnets and proxies to mimic real listeners across geographic locations.

The Satori Threat Intelligence team from HUMAN Security notes hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs, some with lyrics, and uses botnets, fake accounts, listener farms and digital distribution services to push streams, with rightsholders typically paid about $0.003 to $0.005 per play. Generative AI is also used to manage bot networks, rotate proxies and spoof digital identities, while platforms’ algorithms are gamed to boost AI-generated material into real-user recommendations.

The researchers point to examples such as Firefly Entertainment and Epidemic Sound, and highlight that sudden spikes in traffic, coupled with drop-offs not tied to promotional activity, can indicate bot-driven streaming activity.