BBC Trending: The dark side of music streaming episode artwork

EPISODE · Feb 5, 2025 · 17 MIN

BBC Trending: The dark side of music streaming

from The Documentary Podcast · host BBC World Service

In September last year, musician Michael Smith of North Carolina was charged with stealing millions from music streaming services. The US Department of Justice has accused him of using artificial intelligence tools and thousands of bots to fraudulently stream songs billions of times - taking millions of dollars of royalties which otherwise would have been paid to real artists. The case has been labelled as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘the first of its kind’. But could fraud on music streaming services actually be much more prevalent than any of the platforms let on? BBC Trending speaks to music industry insiders, and those fighting back against streaming fraud.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Feb 5, 2025

Embed this episode

NOW PLAYING

BBC Trending: The dark side of music streaming

0:00 17:41

No transcript for this episode yet

We transcribe on demand. Request one and we'll notify you when it's ready — usually under 10 minutes.

No similar episodes found.

No similar podcasts found.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long is this episode of The Documentary Podcast?

This episode is 17 minutes long.

When was this The Documentary Podcast episode published?

This episode was published on February 5, 2025.

Can I download this The Documentary Podcast episode?

Yes. Use the download control on the episode player to save the publisher-provided media file.
URL copied to clipboard!