MLC partners with Beatdapp to combat streaming fraud

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) has partnered with Beatdapp, an independent fraud detection company, to prevent streaming fraud. While MLC already has internal measures in place to combat this, their partnership with Beatdapp will provide additional and complementary protections to their database.

Beatdapp has quickly become the music industry's go-to for independent fraud analysis in recent years. The company has worked for a number of record labels, collection companies, distributors and streaming services to help them wade through trillions of rows of data and identify and investigate suspicious patterns. Earlier this year, Beatdapp announced a strategic partnership with Universal Music Group and raised $17 million in its latest funding round. Other clients include SoundCloud, Beatport, 7digital and more.

According to a report from the Center National de la Musique (CNM), a government-backed organization that supports France's music industry, in 2021, over 1 billion music streams — between 1% and 3% of all streams that were created in the country that year — they were fraudulent. Streaming fraud can take many forms. This can include falsely claiming rights and ownership of songs created by other artists, or uploading songs and flattening their stream count using various means such as bot farms or account hacking.

Advertising sign has explored the rise and persistence of rights fraud, including a story detailing an Arizona outfit called Mediamuv that stole $23 million in YouTube rights over 5 years. “The methods used by fraudsters are constantly evolving and improving,” the CNM report states.

“MLC is uniquely positioned in the music industry to make a significant contribution to tackling streaming fraud,” he says Andrew Mitchell, head of analytics and automation at The MLC. “Building on our ongoing efforts, we are proud to partner with Beatdapp to further enhance the many ways MLC serves its 43,000+ Members.”

“MLC plays a vital role in the music industry and we are proud to partner with them and support their ongoing efforts to combat streaming fraud,” he says. Morgan Hajduk and Andrew Batey, co-CEOs at Beatdapp. “Beatdapp has built its technology by learning from the best trust and security solutions serving other online industries and adapting our technology to the unique characteristics of music to provide an unbiased, independent fraud detection solution capable of addressing the persistent and ever-changing nature of the fraud.”