Streaming fraud remains one of the biggest concerns facing the global music business, with the use of bots, click farms and coordinated artificial listening continuing to distort royalty payments, chart positions and consumption data across the industry.
Tuned Global, the technology platform used by businesses to power licensed music and audio services, has launched what it calls a Service Manipulation Detection (SMD) system, designed to help streaming platforms and rightsholders identify and act on that activity.
The offering, announced on Tuesday (April 21), monitors for manipulation tactics including bot usage, click farms, scripted listening and coordinated repeat plays – all of which can distort play counts, chart positions and royalty allocations.
Rather than operating as a standalone specialist tool, the SMD system is embedded within Tuned Global’s existing data processing environment, giving clients what the company describes as an “integrated detection layer” from within the platform itself. According to Tuned Global, the system addresses growing expectations from labels and publishers that streaming services maintain formal measures for detecting and preventing such activity.
The system monitors activity across five levels: track, artist, user, network and payment.
At the track level, the company said it identifies what it calls “abnormal consumption patterns” including disproportionate play-to-listener ratios, unusual completion-rate and skip-rate distributions, playback bursts and repetitive listening behaviour. Artist-level analysis examines aggregate catalogue data for “systemic patterns” that may not be visible at the individual track level, Tuned Global said.
User-level monitoring flags excessive repetition, unusually high daily activity or what the company calls “invariant listening patterns” over time. Network-level controls detect suspicious login behaviour, geographic inconsistencies, and shared IP or device activity across multiple accounts.
Plays exceeding defined thresholds can be excluded from royalty calculations and chart reporting. All flagged activity is subject to internal review, with audit trails maintained throughout.
Where manipulation is suspected or confirmed, Tuned Global may exclude affected plays from royalty calculations, remove activity from chart reporting, or suspend user accounts in line with applicable contractual terms.
Participating rights holders can receive monthly summaries of discounted plays, plus periodic summaries of detected manipulation trends.
“Rights holders and labels are increasingly explicit in their expectations around streaming integrity, particularly as manipulation directly impacts royalty allocation and chart performance.”
CON RASO, TUNED GLOBAL
“Rights holders and labels are increasingly explicit in their expectations around streaming integrity, particularly as manipulation directly impacts royalty allocation and chart performance,” said Con Raso, CEO of Tuned Global.
“In licensing discussions, they are looking for platforms to demonstrate clearly defined detection frameworks, including the ability to identify suspicious activity at multiple levels, apply consistent thresholds, and maintain auditability over decisions.”
Raso added that there is now a “strong expectation” that platforms can take enforceable action, including excluding artificial streams from royalty calculations and providing transparent reporting back to rights holders.
“The streaming Service Manipulation Detection solution gives Tuned Global’s clients and their licensing partners a clear, documented system for monitoring, reporting, and enforcement,” he said.
“We wanted to make meaningful manipulation detection and prevention attainable for a wider range of services and rights holders from day one. This gives them a structured, integrated starting point that aligns with what labels are asking for in licensing conversations.”
The SMD framework operates alongside Tuned Global’s existing integration with fraud detection specialist Beatdapp, which recently launched a Trust & Safety operating system targeting fraud beyond music streaming. The integration gives Tuned Global clients the option to layer additional third-party detection capabilities.
Tuned Global first partnered with Beatdapp in October 2024, integrating the latter’s fraud detection tools into platforms built on its infrastructure. At the time, Tuned Global’s Chief Revenue Officer Spiro Arkoudis said fraud prevention was “moving from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to an industry requirement”.
The initial implementation phase of the SMD system is now complete, with the framework available for individual services and clients electing to adopt it.
Looking ahead, Raso said the system is designed to evolve from its current rule-based approach toward more adaptive models.
“In the near term, this means expanding from rule-based detection into more adaptive models, including machine learning approaches that can identify both known manipulation patterns and emerging behaviours that do not fit historical norms,” he said.
“Over time, the focus will increasingly shift toward predictive and anomaly-based detection, rather than purely reactive measures.”
Raso noted that aggregated, anonymized data across Tuned Global’s client base would play a key role in that evolution, creating what he described as a “network effect” in which detection capability improves as more services participate.
The launch comes amid heightened industry action on streaming fraud. In one recent case covered by MBW, a US man pleaded guilty to collecting $8 million in royalties from hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs streamed billions of times by bots. The issue has been a recurring focus of MBW’s End Streaming Fraud coverage.
Founded in 2011, Tuned Global provides the cloud-based infrastructure that other businesses use to launch music streaming services or integrate licensed music into digital products across sectors including telecom, gaming, fitness, health, media and aviation. The company says it has supported more than 40 companies across 70 countries.
Over the past 18 months, Tuned Global has significantly expanded its platform and partnership footprint. In September 2024, the company struck a global licensing agreement with Universal Music Group, bringing the recorded music licensing process directly into Tuned Global’s suite of services for its B2B clients. That deal was followed in October 2024 by the Beatdapp integration for fraud detection.
In November 2024, the company launched its Social Radio product – an interactive, fan-driven broadcast layer for DSPs powered by its AutomixIQ technology, itself a product of Tuned Global’s 2023 acquisition of Swedish music AI firm Pacemaker. Social Radio was subsequently upgraded with a real-time tipping feature in June 2025.
Earlier in 2025, Tuned Global rolled out AI music features via a partnership with AudioShake, enabling stem separation and word-by-word lyric transcription for its clients, and teamed up with AI-powered analytics firm Zetaris to help businesses monetise streaming data.
In October 2025, the company acquired London-based AI audio search firm Figaro.ai, bringing automated catalogue tagging and content detection technology into its platform. Around the same time, Tuned Global powered the launch of Sonsy, a streaming service built specifically for the Mongolian market, alongside earlier platform launches including Plern in Thailand, Mjams in the Pacific Islands, Sewasew in Ethiopia and Tusass Music in Greenland.
In December 2025, Tuned Global renewed its three-year partnership with MENA streaming service Twist Music, operated by telecom group e&, to power the service’s expansion beyond Egypt into the UAE and Saudi Arabia. That same month, it served as the strategic technology partner for the launch of Realize Music: Sing, a VR karaoke game featuring over one million licensed tracks from UMG, WMG, Sony Music and Beggars Group.
Music Business Worldwide