French streaming service Deezer reported that fraudsters dominate AI-generated music streams on its platform, accounting for over 80 per cent of such plays. The Paris-listed company, which recently achieved its first net profit in nearly two decades, said these fraudsters upload thousands of AI songs and repeatedly listen to them to generate royalty payments that harm legitimate artists. Deezer estimates songs created for fraudulent streaming account for 5-10% of content across all streaming platforms.

Fraudsters use AI tools like Suno and Udio to create entire songs in seconds, then deploy bots to artificially inflate play counts. Victoria Oakley of IFPI called this "theft" and urged industry action to combat the crime. While AI tracks make up just 3% of Deezer's total streams, 85% of these are fraudulent, compared to 8 per cent of all streams across the platform in 2025. These fraudulent plays are removed from the royalty pool shared among all artists.

Despite the fraud challenge, Deezer reported financial improvements with revenues of €534mn and net income of €9mn, its first profitable year since 2007. The company is focusing on AI detection to identify legitimate versus fraudulent tracks, though it remains unclear who the perpetrators are. With over 13 million AI tracks detected and 60,000 added daily, the fraud issue threatens artist royalties across streaming platforms as AI-generated content continues to proliferate.