On the heels of Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet’s report last week of criminal gangs using Spotify’s royalty system to launder money through artificially inflated stream counts, a new report from the Financial Times has prompted further industry conjecture about the legitimacy of DSP stream counts. Although few would argue against the simplicity introduced by Spotify’s initial financial model upon its 2011 debut in the US the distribution of that money back to the artists has long been a hotly debated topic.
