Songwriters’ interests must be central to any industry response to streaming fraud, National Music Publishers’ Association president and CEO David Israelite argues as the Copyright Royalty Board prepares to determine streaming rates for 2028 through 2032.
In a guest column published by Billboard, Israelite said the proceeding will involve more than the rates and terms governing what major digital services pay songwriters. He maintained that the board must also consider how fraud affects the royalty system, particularly as artificial intelligence makes it possible to generate music and manipulate listening activity at enormous scale.
Israelite also predicted that streaming companies including Spotify, Amazon and Google will continue seeking ways to reduce payments to songwriters during the coming rate fight.
How Fake Plays Cut Into Royalties
The financial problem begins with the structure of streaming royalties. Services set aside a percentage of revenue for musical works, then distribute money from that pool proportionally according to plays. Under that system, Israelite argued, royalties assigned to fraudulent streams directly diminish the amount available to legitimate composers and songwriters.
He cited the case of Michael Smith as a stark example. In March of this year, the Department of Justice announced Smith’s guilty plea in a scheme involving hundreds of thousands of AI-created songs that were streamed billions of times. Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison weeks ago.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said the listening activity and songs may have been fake, but the financial damage was not. “Millions of dollars in royalties” were diverted from legitimate artists and rights holders, Clayton said.
Platform figures cited in the column suggest the problem reaches far beyond one criminal case. Apple Music identified 2 billion fraudulent streams on its service in 2025. This year, Deezer reported that 90,000 entirely AI-generated tracks were arriving on its platform each day and that as much as 85% of the streams associated with those tracks were artificial.
Deezer removes streams it identifies as fraudulent from royalty calculations. Israelite called that an important first step and urged the broader industry to adopt the same approach.
Claims of Money Laundering and Betting Manipulation
The column also highlighted reports that fake streaming has been used for purposes beyond collecting unearned royalties. A September 2023 Guardian story, citing Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, reported that criminal gangs in Sweden were using manipulated Spotify streams to launder proceeds connected to crimes including drug deals, robberies, fraud and contract killings.
According to that report, money was used to purchase false streams for songs released by artists with gang ties. Payments generated by the inflated listening totals then provided a way to launder the funds.
The Guardian also reported that an investigative police officer said he contacted Spotify in 2021 but did not receive a return call. The officer described a direct connection between the streaming activity, gangs and deadly violence.
Spotify disputed key elements of that account in a statement to AFP. The company called artificial streaming an industry-wide problem but said less than 1% of its total streams had been determined to be artificial, with those plays mitigated before payouts. Spotify also said it was unaware of the law-enforcement contact and had found no hard data showing its platform was being used at the reported scale.
Another potential form of manipulation involves prediction markets. According to Music Ally’s The Price of Music podcast, people using platforms such as Kalshi have been accused of artificially boosting track streams to profit from trades. The alleged conduct could also expose innocent artists to account bans.
An Industry Push for Standards
Israelite said incomplete transparency from streaming companies around AI-generated music and related fraud has contributed to the issue being underreported.
The NMPA plans to convene a Songs Summit this week in Nashville to examine AI-related questions, streaming fraud and possible industry responses. The gathering is expected to bring digital services, music publishers and songwriters into a discussion about common standards designed to prevent fraudulent activity from diverting royalties.
Potential areas for cooperation include labels identifying AI involvement in musical works, clearer usage reports, greater transparency and shared AI-detection standards. Israelite acknowledged that parts of the music business already agree on some of these concerns, but argued that publishing faces distinct challenges not addressed by current legislation and litigation.
The NMPA, founded in 1917, is a trade association representing American music publishers and their songwriting partners.
ShowBiz Take
The numbers cited in Israelite’s column make clear why streaming fraud is not simply a platform-security dispute. In a proportional royalty system, manipulated plays can affect how a fixed pool of money is divided, placing songwriters’ income directly inside the debate over AI detection and enforcement.
The contrasting positions also show the difficulty ahead. Deezer’s decision to exclude identified fraud offers one possible model, while Spotify’s response to the Swedish reporting demonstrates that the scale and use of artificial streaming remain contested. Any effective industry standard will therefore require agreement not only on enforcement, but also on definitions, disclosure and credible measurement.
What Happens Next?
The immediate focus moves to the Songs Summit in Nashville, where the NMPA intends to explore standards with services, publishers and songwriters. Beyond that meeting, the Copyright Royalty Board’s proceeding on 2028-2032 rates will provide a consequential forum for deciding how streaming terms affect songwriters—and whether protections against fraudulent plays become part of that framework.