Beatport Warns Anyone Who Tries To Cheat Their Chart System

[Mitch]

The music business has always been difficult to break into for any artist, regardless of style or genre. For DJs, it’s getting even harder given the increasing competition. Innovations in technology have lowered the barrier to entry for creating dance music, while the press attention on our community means interest is higher. The result is more DJs and producers making more music than ever. More competition makes it harder to get noticed.

The history of the music industry is filled with scam artists who claim to offer shortcuts to success. Payola, MySpace bots, fake “likes,” phantom “plays,” paid “followers.” Like every other digital platform, Beatport has seen its share of fraud—artists and labels who try to boost their sales chart position as a way to generate attention and gain “We’re No. 1” bragging rights.

We’re flattered that a Beatport chart position can have such a profound impact on a DJ’s career. It’s what drives us to do everything in our power to ensure that the DJs gaining that recognition deserve it. To do so requires constant vigilance, innovation, and communication. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed an increase in services offering to boost a track’s Beatport chart position for a price.

In response, we monitor our charts daily, looking for anomalies. We’ve built and continue to improve upon technology to prevent chart-boosting efforts. We’re not saying we’ve succeeded or will succeed every time, but we’re getting better at it every day.

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.

As much as this type of thing saddens us, it makes us angry even more. 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.

First, if you’re artificially boosting your sales to fake the demand needed to score a favorable chart position, you’re robbing someone else, someone more deserving, of that same spot. You’re doing more than cheating. You’re stealing. You’re lying. You’re taking false credit for something you didn’t earn, and you’re hurting someone else by doing so.

Second, chart-boosting rarely works. There are some very easy and obvious clues that help us spot the scammers. These scammers talk a good game, but they’re really just preying on the desperation of aspiring DJs in order to line their own pockets. More often than not, the money spent on these scams is just wasted.

Third, you might get caught. There’s nothing the music industry hates more than an exposed fraud. Do you really want to chance short-term gain for long-term embarrassment?

Cheating is as destructive a vice as there is. Success won legitimately and organically is far sweeter than taking any shortcut, no matter how tempting, easy or anonymous it may seem at the time. Those trying to cheat are being watched…not only by us, but by the entire community.

[Narukami]

It's good to see Beatport doing something about scumbags who buy their way into success. I see a lot of small dance musicians on Facebook showing us emails that they get from these types of "companies", often mocking them and those who use these services.

If you want to be successful, you have to be passionate about what you're doing. It'll take a looong time until you get successful but it'll definitely be worth the wait. But waiting seems to be something a lot of people don't want to do.

I've seen my friends who just give up what they're doing (either music or making Youtube skits) because they're not seeing the success already. It's kind of sad really but that just makes me want to keep making music and continue to improve myself. I honestly don't care that I only get like 30 views per video, it's still good to know that people are actually taking the time to listen to my stuff.

Now if only Soundcloud will start doing the same thing.

[Mitch]

If people were truly passionate about what they do, they wouldn't give up in the first place.

The music industry is brutal, and if you want to make it legitimately, you've gotta be in it for the long haul.