Merlin is now a member of the Music Fights Fraud Alliance. Photo Credit: Merlin
Months after bringing on its first director of content integrity, Merlin has officially joined the Music Fights Fraud Alliance (MFFA).
The indie collective (and AI fair-training advocate) announced as much this morning. Established in 2023, Music Fights Fraud, in keeping with its name, bills itself as “a global task force aimed at eradicating streaming fraud.”
And in pursuit of the objective, MFFA is said to collaborate with the 23-year-old National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance (NCFTA) on “a shared database of identified fraud markers.”
From there, members can “track, investigate, and respond to fraudulent activity in real time,” according to Music Fights Fraud, which welcomed former Recording Academy government-relations MD Michael Lewan as executive director in February.
Regarding these members, the MFFA’s diverse ranks include Downtown, Spotify, Amazon Music, SoundCloud, DistroKid, Believe, and about 15 others, the appropriate website shows.
That group now features Merlin as well – with CEO Jeremy Sirota describing his organization’s MFFA membership as a means of building “a more ethical digital marketplace” for actual artists.
“Illegitimate activity siphons revenue away from genuine artists and undermines trust across the entire ecosystem,” Sirota indicated. “We believe that protecting the value of music is rooted in collaboration, accountability, and transparency.
“Since the MFFA’s founding, Merlin has championed its work to our members. By joining the MFFA, we can help to better defend the rights of genuine artists and build a more ethical digital marketplace,” the Merlin head concluded.
As things stand, it’s not exactly a secret that many “genuine artists” are getting a rawer-than-ever deal on streaming services, which are facing daily floods of AI “music.” This refers in part to controversial royalty-accrual stream minimums and an adjacent spike in library sizes.
At the intersection of those points, many already know that a small percentage of uploads are generating recording royalties on Spotify. Less widely considered, however, is the portion of royalty-accruing works attributable to AI as opposed to proper human talent.
That isn’t a Spotify-specific criticism; in fact, the service claims to have promptly put the kibosh on a multimillion-dollar AI royalty scam. (It probably doesn’t need saying given the multimillion-dollar descriptor, but other DSPs weren’t nearly as quick to catch on; MFFA may help prevent similar situations and federal charges moving forward.)
Nevertheless, reports have shed light on alleged streaming farm operations on Spotify and different DSPs. And when dozens of identical 50-second tracks, all attached to generically named “ghost” artist profiles with just a handful of monthly listeners each, have racked up thousands of streams apiece over multiple years on Spotify alone, it’s hard not to be suspicious in this area.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.