Afrobeats, Amapiano, and other genres from Africa owe their global penetration not only to the continent’s rich talent pool and vibrant community but also to the advent of streaming platforms. Digital music streaming services like YouTube Music, Boomplay, Audiomack, and Spotify have played a pivotal role in offering on-the-spot accessibility, documentation, and performance indicators to consumers and creators within the music ecosystem.

Over the years, streaming has emerged as a key indicator of a musical project’s success or failure. However, like many technological advancements, it has been susceptible to misuse, in this case, in the form of streaming manipulation, prompting Spotify to intensify its efforts to combat the practice on its platform.

Stream farming, as we call it, is a coordinated process of manipulating genuine user listening intent by generating inauthentic plays through bots, third-party promotional services, and even naive fans. This intricate phenomenon has long existed in the music ecosystem. However, in a bid to curb the menace on its platform, Spotify has just clarified its policies on artificial streaming for artists, as it looks to clamp down on perpetrators. 

“Fans inorganically streaming your music on loop or attempting to manipulate Spotify by using automated processes (e.g. bots or scripts) is behaviour that you should actively discourage” Spotify explains.

Whether it is inauthentic streams from fans or bots, Spotify says it has erected structures in place to detect any form of manipulation and take actions that may include “withholding of associated royalties, the correction of public streaming numbers, and measures to ensure the artist or song’s popularity is accurately reflected.’’

“Spotify also reserves the right to remove manipulated content from the platform in the case of repeated or egregious artificial streaming,’’ the streaming service provider added.