Bot or Not? Spotify Cracks Down on Boomy's Suspected Artificial Streaming Activity

Spotify Technology S.A. SPOT has withdrawn tens of thousands of songs from artificial intelligence music start-up Boomy amid objections of fraud across streaming services.
Spotify recently took down about 7% of the tracks from Boomy uploads, the equivalent of "tens of thousands" of songs, Financial Times reports.
Universal Music Group UMGNF UNVGY had flagged suspicious streaming activity on Boomy tracks to all the leading streaming platforms.
Spotify removed the Boomy songs due to suspected "artificial streaming": online bots posing as human listeners to inflate the audience numbers for certain songs.
The crackdown follows music industry power broker Lucian Grainge's rant against the proliferation of songs on platforms like Spotify.
Boomy at the weekend resumed submitting new tracks to Spotify. The two sides are bargaining over reinstating the rest of Boomy's catalog.
Boomy allows users to choose various styles or descriptors to create a machine-generated track. Users can then release the music to streaming services, where they will generate royalty payments.
Price Action: SPOT shares traded lower by 0.37% at $144 premarket on the last check Tuesday.