Tidal Under Criminal Investigation in Norway Over 'Faked' Streams | Hacker News Reader

Tidal Under Criminal Investigation in Norway Over 'Faked' Streams

engadget.com

NTNU, a large Norwegian university, analyzed log files provided by the newspaper DN and found evidence of data manipulation. The report is public, in English and can be viewed here: https://www.dn.no/staticprojects/special/2018/05/09/0600/dok...

I’d take it a step further and say they found conclusive evidence of obvious, large scale manipulation.

It wasn't clear in the article. Is the idea that they were inflating play counts of songs related to the owners so that they could suppress the royalties paid to other artists, with the idea that they each get a piece of a pie based on number of plays?

That it is; they are being investigated for violating section 371 of the Norwegian penal code, which reads:

Section 371.Fraud

A penalty of a fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years shall be applied to any person who with intent to obtain an illicit gain for himself/herself or others

a) causes, strengthens or exploits a mistaken belief and thereby deceives someone into doing or omitting to do something by which someone suffers a loss or risks a loss, or

b) makes use of false or incomplete information, modifies data or a computer system, uses a credit or debit card which belongs to another person, or otherwise illicitly affects the result of automated data processing, thereby causing someone a loss or risk of loss.

Specifically, Tidal are accused of violating paragraph b) above.

Whose loss is it to inflate a stream count?

You and I jointly get $10/month, to be split according to our stream counts. We each get 100 views/month, so we both take home $5/month. Now, I start lying, and saying that I am actually receiving 900 views/month. With 90% of the views, I take home $9/month, leaving only $1/month to you. I have fraudulently stolen $4/month from you.

Thanks, this makes sense if royalty payments are a revenue share based on stream share, and not a per-stream fee.

Streams in the industry are payed out according to the pro-rata model, not the user-centric one. TIDAL, when being WiMP, helped with studies on this: https://musically.com/2015/08/18/user-centric-streaming-payo...

If you and your buddies own the service, and you order the nerds over in Norway/Northpole to inflate the play counts of you and your buddies's music so that you don't have to pay other randos so much money: all of the other artists.

Yes. Insert half-serious joke about the the business ethics of a self-confessed former drug dealer (https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2013/11/jay-z-beyonce-b...) here.

But Obama brought him to the white house! I thought he was a nice guy

I suspect this may have been an open secret in the industry- J.Cole calls this out in his feature for A Lot by 21 Savage, for one.

[capitalized song title for readability]

> Question

> How many faking they streams? (A lot)

> Getting they plays from machines (A lot)

> I can see behind the smoke and mirrors

https://genius.com/21-savage-a-lot-lyrics

>[capitalized song title for readability]

better yet, use quotes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotation_marks_in_English#Tit...

Are they still a “high fidelity” streaming service if they are lying?

I'm very against this (and any) fraud, and the evidence here is pretty damning. But I've been using Tidal since about a year before Jay-Z bought it, and it was and still is my favorite streaming service. Super fast and pretty UI, lossless audio, and a selection that now seems to rival Spotify's.

I'll admit my main reason for using it is the wide selection of albums to losslessly stream.

I know many people will say any differences in lossless audio are explained by the placebo effect (which could be true), but I've already spent thousands on the best audio system I could afford, so I figure I might as well spend a little bit extra on the source material as well. (I know many people will say there's no difference with lossless whether you have a good system or not, and that there's also no difference between a low-end and a high-end system regardless of compression, but my experience of both differs, even if it may all be in my head.)

There is a test online that shows you 2 mp3 encodings and a wav and you have to pick out the wav. I couldn't get any right but my bf got them all correct so there could be some small noticeable difference between mp3 320kbps and lossless. Personally I store flacs because I want to use Opus instead of mp3 on mobile and mp3 to opus will trash the quality

It is my main online music service, mostly for the fast / minimal UI that seems to work quite well even on slower machines and navigates well back and forth between items.

It's one of the best streaming service experiences I've encountered.

Yes I use them too for the same reasons (via Roon to various endpoints and DACs). I just couldn’t resist the double entendre about fidelity.

I read this as "Tinder Under Criminal Investigation in Norway Over 'Faked' Streams'. I was so confused!

Tidal’s unwillingness to comment on this case speaks volumes.

No, it doesn't. When you are under a criminal investigation, even if you're innocent (Especially if you're innocent), the first thing you should do is sit down, and the second thing you should do is shut up. The third thing you should do is get a lawyer.

If you're not a legal expert (And even if you are a legal expert), you have no idea what the impact of saying anything at all, be it false, true, or somewhere in the middle, will have on your case.

If you read the original Norwegian story you could tell there was something extremely curious about every comment from the company and how aggressively they dismissed things.

They borderline sued the newspaper for writing about this story, when all that data paints a picture with little room for interpretation.

They’re guilty. There’s no doubt.

There was a comment here, which I guess was flagged for... being snarky? But I think it merits discussion:

> Guilty until proven innocent...

> "Welcome to America"

I see a lot of this sentiment around, regarding people whose “lives are ruined” etc by not getting a job, or having a public reputation for committing a crime they haven’t been convicted of.

But I don’t understand the “in all matters of public life, treat everyone as innocent of every crime until they are convicted”.

But to me it seems like exercising discretion in our private judgements ALLOWS the state to have the highest possible standard for guilt (proof beyond a reasonable doubt).

To take an extreme example, if we are going to allow anyone who hasn’t been convicted of child molesting to work in a day care center, then I would want MUCH more aggressive conviction strategy by the state. Even a slight preponderance of evidence would be enough, since we would NEED a conviction in order to put in place the most basic protections for the public.

Instead, it seems to me, we all should judge people guilty of crimes entirely at our own discretion, that way the courts are FREE to only imprison those who have met the highest standard of guilt.

I simply don’t understand those who suggest that employers, public forums, and communities should presume innocence until there is a conviction. Does anyone here hold that ideal who can defend it?

Exactly. Talking publicly about an open criminal case can't possibly exonerate you, but it can do quite the opposite.

I generally agree with you, but it depends on what Tidal's normal responses are. If they aggressively defend themselves in public usually, but do a 'no comment' on this one, it may be a sign.

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