Apple Music has doubled its penalties for fraudulent streaming, increasing fines from 5% to 10% with a new 50% cap, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. The move comes as part of Apple's ongoing crackdown on streaming manipulation, which the company claims has removed billions of manipulated streams in 2025 alone.

Streaming fraud typically involves bots or other manipulation tactics to artificially inflate play counts and earn illegitimate royalties. Apple first introduced fraud penalties in 2022 and reported a 30% reduction in manipulation by 2023. The company's strategy employs a sliding scale of fines, meaning fraudulent activity worth $1 million could now result in a maximum $500,000 penalty.

Oliver Schusser, who oversees Apple Music and Apple TV, emphasized that the platform views itself as a quality-focused service that doesn't tolerate cheating. He noted that while competitors like Spotify face similar challenges with streaming fraud, Apple believes its enforcement infrastructure is more robust. The penalties aim to redistribute money from cheaters back to legitimate artists and labels, addressing what Schusser called a significant industry problem where artists manipulate streams to boost chart positions and playlist placements.