How Apple Music Demonetized 2 Billion Fraudulent Streams in 2025

In 2025 Apple Music took aggressive steps against streaming manipulation by demonetizing 2 billion artificially generated plays. The move protected nearly $17 million in royalties and reinforced chart integrity for legitimate artists. By deploying advanced validation systems and fraud detection algorithms, Apple identified manipulated streams, removed them from charts, and redirected associated funds back into the royalty pool.

Key outcomes

• 2 billion manipulated streams removed
• Almost $17 million preserved for rightful artists
• Improved accuracy of charts and playlists
• Stronger safeguards against stream farming and fake plays

Apple signaled a stronger stance on fair compensation.

In 2025, Apple Music addressed the issue of fraudulent streams by demonetizing 2 billion manipulated plays on its platform. This action prevented nearly $17 million in potential royalties from being wrongfully distributed to accounts using fraudulent tactics.

The process employed by Apple Music involves rigorous validation systems that detect and remove manipulated stream counts from both the platform and the charts. Once identified, these streams are eliminated from consideration for royalties, and the funds are redirected back to the royalty pool. This ensures that the royalties are fairly allocated to legitimate artists and content creators.

This effort by Apple Music underscores their commitment to maintaining a fair and transparent environment within the music streaming industry.

In 2022, Apple Music introduced fraud penalties to address streaming manipulation on its platform. These penalties initially started at 5% and were capped at 25% of the manipulated revenue. Furthermore, these penalty figures are set to double, reflecting Apple’s stringent stance against fraudulent activities.

Apple Music employs systems designed to meticulously check and validate every single play on its platform. When fraud is detected, the platform removes fraudulent stream counts and purges these streams from the charts. The financial repercussions are addressed by redirecting the implicated funds back into the royalty pool, ensuring that legitimate artists receive fair compensation.

This approach indicates Apple’s commitment to fostering an equitable environment within the music streaming industry, penalizing fraudulent behavior effectively.

Deezer launched its AI tagging system in June of the previous year, aiming to enhance its capability to identify and manage fraudulent streams. Since the launch, the system has tagged over 13.4 million AI tracks, out of which up to 85% were identified as fraudulent and subsequently removed from the royalty pool. This development highlights the effectiveness of Deezer’s system in curbing fraudulent practices and ensuring that only legitimate streams are rewarded. Furthermore, Deezer is exploring opportunities to license its AI tagging technology to other brands and platforms. This move could extend the impact of its fraud detection capabilities across the music streaming industry, reinforcing the commitment to maintaining accurate and genuine streaming data.

Streaming manipulation on our platform is already incredibly low. We literally have systems where we check and validate every single play on Apple Music. When we find fraud we remove the stream counts, we remove from the charts, and we take the money and put it back into the pool so that it goes to honourable artists…

Still, we have removed billions of manipulated streams from the service in 2025 alone. This is a huge problem in the industry, people want to be number one in the charts. They want to make it into playlists. Despite that, you’re still talking about billions of manipulated streams, just in last year alone.

We look at ourselves as a quality platform, and we don’t like it when people cheat, and we like to give it back to those who don’t cheat. It’s really as simple as that.

Conclusion

In 2025 Apple Music implemented measures to combat fraudulent streaming by demonetizing manipulated plays and adjusting royalty allocations. The platform’s validation systems check and validate individual plays, remove manipulated stream counts, and remove affected entries from the charts. When invalid streams are identified, Apple Music redirects the money associated with those streams back into the royalty pool for legitimate artists. The company frames these actions as part of maintaining a quality platform and protecting compensation for honourable creators.

Apple Music also enforces fraud penalties introduced in 2022 and has reported adjustments to those penalty levels. The removal of manipulated streams and the reallocation of funds form part of the platform’s operational approach to preserving chart integrity and fair payment processes. These actions were presented as responses to widespread manipulation in the industry and as routine outcomes of the platform’s validation procedures. The measures are positioned by Apple Music as mechanisms to ensure that streaming and royalty systems reward legitimate activity.