Beatport Blasts Cheats and Social Media Popularity Sales Sites
Dance music portal Beatport have declared war against online web services offering to boost tracks up their influential sales charts, warning they’re devoting ever increasing resources to tackling those who use their services to cheat.
“To anyone tempted to use one of these so-called chart-boosting services, we urge you to first consider the cost. Not the monetary cost of what these scams charge, but rather the cost to your career, to your reputation, and the cost to your soul,” Beatport declared in a statement posted on their site.
“When we spot a boosted record or track, we remove it from the store, and we’ll continue to do so. Our next step is to permanently ban the offending artists and labels. And we’re not bluffing,” they vowed.
The issue was previously analysed in detail by US website 5Chicago.com who in a lengthy feature in 2013 examined how anonymous producer ‘Louie’ managed to attract numerous reviews on blogs and in publications as well as featuring ‘prominently on the front pages of Beatport’ after buying up fake listens on Soundcloud.
Spending less than US$100 for 20,000 streams and supporting comments via Cloud-Dominator, he also charted highly on Beatport, said 5Chicago.
“The track with 37,000 plays today [is] in the Top 100 [on] Beatport”, he says, as well as being in “the Top 100 Beatport deep house tracks at #11.”
Though Cloud-dominator briefly went offline following the media furore that followed 5Chicago’s expose, the site is now back online with no apparent remorse or apology.
“Increase plays! Increase downloads! Increase followers! Increase Exposure on Soundcloud!” the site’s home page promises.
“Cloud Dominator SoundCloud bot will help you get noticed on SoundCloud and dominate the music industry! With complete automation you will save time and money! Just set the tasks and let Cloud Dominator do all the work! Best SoundCloud Bot out there!” they boast. http://cloud-dominator.com
Jonty Skrufff: https://twitter.com/djjontyskrufff