After a recent spike in both view botting and fraudulent copyright strikes, dozens of artists have had their songs wrongfully taken down by SoundCloud. We examine how the platform’s current terms of service leaves their creators at risk.
SoundCloud was once the indie artist’s best friend. As a pioneer platform conceiving the meteoric rise of countless contemporary acts, the company cemented itself with infrastructure geared for the growth of the independent musician. Despite worrisome rumors of the company’s financial state back in 2018, they have been able to maintain their presence as a go-to service. But, this might be changing. While rolling back their disruptive 15-track upload restriction on free users last week due to public backlash, SoundCloud has yet again overlooked two developing problems on their platform: view botting and fraudulent copyright claims.
Since October, there has been an uptick in the trend of view botting on the site, the practice of purchasing artificial plays on a song to inflate user metrics (which is borderline illegal). Yet it is not artists who are the ones attempting to increase their play counts. Instead, anonymous users are targeting artists with the intent of tainting their statistics. This has adverse consequences as it damages both the artist’s metrics and legitimacy. In the music business, where data is crucial in evaluating song growth and devising label deals, this artificial inflation can take a big toll on someone’s career. Fake plays and comments stick out like a sore thumb, and are not a good signal for potential investors or collaborators. The worst part is that the spread of this digital scourge is plaguing both new and developed artists. Rising acts such as Stacy Money, BIGBABYGUCCI, fiftygrand, Ginseng and fadedblackid have all reported getting their songs view botted. Most of the time, artists decide to delete these botted songs simply for damage control. As play counts sit as a resume piece for careers in music, skewing them only tarnishes an artist’s image in the public eye.
So why would somebody waste their own money to buy fake plays on someone else’s song? The answer lies in the fact that it costs as little as ~$0.02 to purchase 1,000 fake plays on SoundCloud. That means a song could be inflated by ~100,000 plays for the measly price of $2. With just a few dollars, anybody can pay to ruin the metrics of a newly released single or project.
To make matters worse, SoundCloud has no current solution towards potentially reversing these fake plays or figuring out who is behind them. Los Angeles-based rapper Sweeney recently approached the SoundCloud Trust & Safety team with this issue, and the company’s response was disheartening. According to the T&S team, they “do not have the technical means of reverting or adjusting play counts. This is because unlike fake likes, follows or reposts these plays are not actioned by a specific SoundCloud account.” So as it currently stands, there is little to nothing that can be done. As the frequency of view botting continues to grow, artists like Texako are vowing to leave the platform to avoid it. If this trend continues with no fix, a mass exodus of artists towards mainstream DSPs could loom on the horizon.
Simultaneously, artists are dealing with another instance of anonymous abuse of the platform. If being forced to delete their own songs wasn’t bad enough, “burner” accounts are falsely reporting copyright infringement and causing songs to be automatically deleted by the system. With the click of just one button, users are lead to a webform requesting a link to any SoundCloud track that potentially infringes upon their copyright ownership. While the effectiveness of SoundCloud’s copyright system has fallen under criticism before, the outrage is only getting louder. Once again, acts of all sizes are being targeted. Artists such as Belis are calling for action, as she states that her and more than thirty others received copyright strikes in the same exact day.
In the eyes of Neilaworld founder fadedblackid: “This issue is disappointing to have to deal with. How easily people have the ability to go through and purge artist and creator accounts with botted plays and copyright infringement is a disgrace, and I’m honestly considering not using SoundCloud anymore.” As a music producer actively being affected by both of these issues, he is not alone in his current disappointment and distaste for the platform.
Vocalist and producer Fifty Grand shares a similar view, “Frankly I find it absurd that anyone on the planet can strike an artist’s song without proof of infringement or identity. This is a massive flaw that I’m sure SoundCloud has been aware of for years — I’ve had my songs wrongfully removed in previous years — but seems to have made no effort to resolve.” He makes a great point, as these anon users submit zero proof of identity or evidence to make their claim, all the while having nothing to lose in the process.
Belis, upon hearing the news of her work being removed, shares that, “I immediately thought it was an accident on SoundCloud’s part. Once other artists and I realized we were struck by variations of the same fake email, I knew it was BS and I wanted to do something about it. It’s angering — some people eat dinner off of the money they make from their SoundCloud streams, and when their song is taken down for 2 weeks, it can make a big dent in their income. The current rules in place don’t protect real creators.” She also adds that, in order to work towards a solution, Soundcloud should, “start with ensuring whether or not the song that has been struck actually has reserved rights or is under creative commons. Another problem is songs being taken down immediately without any proof of ownership. The trolls who struck us obviously didn’t have any ownership of our songs, so they wouldn’t ever attempt to seek a court order and take the songs down permanently. It’s just a big waste of time.”
Aside from at least having a SoundCloud account, there is seemingly no risks as these anonymous parties report copyright infringement on the website. When someone’s song is removed incorrectly, SoundCloud encourages its users to file a dispute and “describe their rights” to the work in question. This process is often cumbersome, and if the dispute is somehow denied (giving the artist’s account a copyright strike), they are then forced to go through a 14-day DMCA Notice process to revoke said strike. Given this time period, the claimant must prove they rightfully own the work they previously reported. While SoundCloud has its punishments, such as suspension/termination or liability for damages if you have submitted groundless claims, taking repercussive action on anonymous burner accounts brings no justice whatsoever. The frustration this causes for artists, who are literally fighting for the rights to their own songs, is obvious.
Fraudulent copyright infringement may even be a bigger issue than view bots. While there is no monetary cost for these anon users, it is also easy to carry out and nearly just as destructive. Anybody with a SoundCloud account has access to this feature, and there is no limit to how many songs one can report. The problem here is that these tracks are removed most of the time, no questions asked. Anonymous claimants manipulate this system, as it clearly does not discern the variety of sounds being claimed, it simply processes them. Claims can be numerous on a single user’s uploads, and even result in entire projects being removed. With these incorrect copyright claims running rampant, this could be the reason why more than thirty artists all had songs reported and deleted on the same exact day. Artists, in fear of this “purge” are even opting to privatize their songs to protect them.
Although this SoundCloud copyright debacle is driving some to ditch the platform altogether, most artists simply want increased protection from fraudulent copyright claims and botting. Until SoundCloud responds, it’s creators are at risk.