On 7 October 2026 the US Copyright Office published a notice of inquiry on music streaming fraud in the Federal Register, seeking public comment. The inquiry responds to a letter from Representative Scott Fitzgerald asking the Office to examine the prevalence of streaming fraud across digital platforms and how it may be affecting the music industry as a whole. Written comments are due by 23 November 2026 and reply comments by 21 December 2026, both through the federal eRulemaking portal. The notice explains that under pro-rata royalty systems fraudsters use bot farms, click farms, playlist stuffing, account hijacking and other methods to inflate plays and divert money from the rights owners of legitimately streamed works; the primary harm is the dilution of the royalty pool, and it can also affect where songs are placed in platform playlists and algorithmic queues.
The Office sets out ten groups of questions, covering how streaming fraud is executed and how prevalent particular schemes are; which industry policies or practices may inadvertently contribute to it; its current and projected economic impact; its relationship to AI-generated music and to the licensing and distribution of royalties; the methods stakeholders use against it and their effectiveness, such as trusted distributors, content and customer verification, royalty clawback, fines and content removal; how ownership and usage data can be used, including shared suspicious-activity reports, a database of known fraud and metadata standards; potential voluntary, statutory or regulatory solutions, such as best practices, no-fault injunctive relief and adjusted information-sharing rules; and how criminal enforcement can address it, including its use by organised crime.
J&C notes that record labels, distributors, songwriters and their administrators can draw on their own data on suspicious plays and their experience with royalty clawbacks and content removal to file comments by 23 November; the submissions may shape the direction of later congressional action on information-sharing, injunctive relief and criminal enforcement.
Source: thefederalregister.org | ipwatchdog.com
