A joint effort by global recording industry group IFPI and Music Canada has resulted in the takedown of nine “streaming manipulation” websites operating in Canada, marking a major victory for record companies.
Streaming manipulation is a practice that undermines artist revenue and distorts music streaming charts.
IFPI and Music Canada — which represents Canada’s major labels, Sony Music Entertainment Canada, Universal Music Canada and Warner Music Canada — filed a complaint with the Canadian Competition Bureau in relation to a network of nine consumer-facing services that were found to have been engaged in music streaming manipulation by selling artificial ‘plays’, ‘views’ or ‘streams’ on digital streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
These services inflated numbers for certain tracks, creating a false impression of popularity, potentially misleading fans and unfairly boosting certain artists on music charts, IFPI and Music Canada said in a statement. Additionally, this sort of streaming manipulation interferes with the effective functioning of music streaming services, the groups said.
The complaint identified MRINSTA.com as the most popular service among the nine. Following the complaint, all nine sites and their sub-domains were taken offline.
“Streaming manipulation has no place in music. Perpetrators and enablers of streaming manipulation cannot be allowed to continue to divert revenue away from the artists who create the music.”
Lauri Rechardt, IFPI
“Streaming manipulation has no place in music. Perpetrators and enablers of streaming manipulation cannot be allowed to continue to divert revenue away from the artists who create the music,” said Lauri Rechardt, Chief Legal Officer, IFPI, in a press release on Thursday (March 14).
“The activity also harms consumers and distorts the fan experience. IFPI thanks the Bureau, and RCMP Federal Policing Cybercrime, for the time and resources that they have committed to addressing this serious issue and we look forward to future co-operation.”
Patrick Rogers, CEO of Music Canada, said, “Alongside IFPI, we’re committed to taking action against streaming manipulation sites and the bad actors who deliberately steal from artists and rightsholders. This is an important regulatory precedent that can be followed in other markets to protect rightsholders and the integrity of the streaming marketplace.”
“Alongside IFPI, we’re committed to taking action against streaming manipulation sites and the bad actors who deliberately steal from artists and rightsholders.”
Patrick Rogers, Music Canada
While the specific details of the legal complaint were not disclosed, it likely centered around violations of Canada’s Competition Act. The Act prohibits deceptive marketing practices and unfair competition.
The takedown of the nine Canadian sites mark the IFPI’s latest fight against streaming manipulation and other practices that hurt music creators’ rights and undermine legal practices in the music industry. In October 2023, the IFPI and its Brazilian counterpart Pro-Música Brasil succeeded in asking Cyber Gaeco, a special cybercrime unit under the São Paulo’s prosecutor’s office, to take down FileWarez.tv, an illegal file-sharing website.
Also in October, the IFPI and BVMI, the recorded music body in Germany, announced the successful shutdown of German streaming manipulation service, SP-Onlinepromotion.com.
The IFPI and BVMI also took successful legal action in April 2023 against an individual hosting YouTube-DL, a stream-ripping software. The Hamburg Regional Court issued an injunction requiring the individual to stop hosting the software.
In India, the IFPI, in conjunction with IMI, India’s representative body for music labels, coordinated what they described as the first-ever successful effort to block stream-ripping sites in the country.
Music Business Worldwide