This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Digital Labels & Publishers Legal
Brazilian trade group says it’s taken down more than 65 stream manipulation services
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 6 July 2021
Brazilian record industry trade group Pro-Música Brasil has announced that its work with the country’s anti-piracy body APDIF, cyber-crime policing unit Cyber Gaeco and the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry to tackle stream manipulation has now resulted in more than 65 such services going offline.
Although stream manipulation – where companies create artificial plays for tracks on the streaming services – is an issue worldwide, it’s been a much bigger talking point in certain countries, including Germany and Brazil. In both those countries, local trade groups have been targeting companies that provide stream manipulation services with some nifty legal action and some good old cease-and-desist letters.
Pro-Música Brasil announced last October that – as a result of its efforts – a number of stream manipulation service providers had shut down, or at least taken stream manipulation off the menu of services they offer. Subsequent action means that more than 65 sources of such services have now gone offline.
The trade group says that includes ten websites that have closed down entirely and 20 that removed stream manipulation as a service, plus 35 listings offering dodgy stream stat tactics have been removed from the online marketplace Mercado Livre.
Says Pro-Música Brasil Director Paulo Rosa: “We successfully closed fourteen streaming manipulation services in Brazil last year, based on criminal prosecution and cease and desist notices. Since then, we have been working hard with our industry partners to tackle other prominent sites offering streaming manipulation services”.
Meanwhile IFPI chief Frances Moore adds: “Streaming manipulation has no place in music; we continue to tackle it globally. Pro-Música Brasil, APDIF and Cyber Gaeco have achieved a fantastic result, which supports the continued growth and development of Brazil’s thriving legitimate digital music market”.