{"id":254884,"date":"2026-04-13T10:46:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T09:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=254884"},"modified":"2026-04-13T10:48:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T09:48:53","slug":"sao-paulo-court-orders-shutdown-of-streaming-fraud-site-in-latest-operation-authentica-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/sao-paulo-court-orders-shutdown-of-streaming-fraud-site-in-latest-operation-authentica-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u00e3o Paulo court shuts streaming fraud site in latest ruling under Brazil’s Operation Auth\u00eantica initiative"},"content":{"rendered":"

A court in S\u00e3o Paulo<\/strong> has ordered the permanent blocking of a website that sold artificial plays on music streaming platforms, marking the third ruling under Operation Auth\u00eantica<\/strong>, the Brazilian enforcement initiative targeting fraudulent engagement services.<\/p>\n

The so-called ‘first-instance ruling’ concerns Boom de Seguidores<\/strong>, a service that offered for sale artificial plays on\u00a0Spotify<\/strong>,\u00a0SoundCloud,<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0YouTube Music<\/strong>, as well as fake likes, followers, and comments on social media platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n

The court confirmed that the sale of such services constitutes misleading advertising and is illegal under Brazilian law. It ordered what’s described as “the permanent and dynamic blocking” of the domain www.boomdeseguidores.com.br and any related domains, and directed the defendant to cease offering or marketing services involving coordinated inauthentic behavior by any means. Penalty fees were also imposed.<\/p>\n

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The ruling follows two previous decisions under Operation Auth\u00eantica<\/strong>, against services known as Seguidores<\/strong> and Turbine Digital<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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“Robust enforcement is part of the meaningful and sustained action needed across the industry.”<\/p>\n

Melissa Morgia<\/strong>, IFPI<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Melissa Morgia<\/strong>, Global Chief Content Protection Officer at IFPI<\/strong>, said: “Under Operation Authentica, the Courts have consistently confirmed that services that enable streaming fraud mislead consumers and are unlawful. This illicit business model commercialises fraud and in the music context, ultimately diverts royalties from legitimate creators.”<\/p>\n

Morgia<\/strong> added: “IFPI would like to thank the authorities for their ongoing efforts and will continue to support actions that create serious consequences for those involved.<\/p>\n

“This decision is another step forward in fighting streaming fraud. Robust enforcement is part of the meaningful and sustained action needed across the industry. Companies at every stage of the streaming value chain \u2013 labels, distributors, platforms, aggregators \u2013 must take proactive steps to prevent, to detect and then to act on fraudulent activity.”<\/p>\n

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Paulo Rosa<\/strong>, President of Pro-M\u00fasica Brasil<\/strong> and APDIF do Brasil<\/strong>, said: “Pro-M\u00fasica and APDIF applaud the decision taken by the Judge of the 12\u00aa Vara C\u00edvel of S\u00e3o Paulo-SP, in which the operators of the website ‘boom de seguidores.com.br’ were considered as offering misleading advertising and committing fraud, including the ones against the consumers, ordering such website to be shut down.”<\/p>\n

Rosa<\/strong> added: “In the case of recorded music, the website’s ‘marketing services’ included the sale of fake and artificial ‘plays’ of music on streaming platforms, what was clearly considered illegal and fraudulent. We also thank the State Public Attorney’s office of the state of S\u00e3o Paulo for their continuing efforts to protect the legitimate Brazilian music streaming market.”<\/p>\n

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What is Operation Auth\u00eantica?<\/h6>\n

Operation Auth\u00eantica<\/strong> was launched in 2023<\/strong> and is led by CyberGaeco<\/strong> and the Consumer Protection Prosecutor’s Office of the State of S\u00e3o Paulo<\/strong>, with support from IFPI<\/strong> and APDIF do Brasil<\/strong>. The initiative targets the commercialization of fraudulent engagement services, including those that artificially inflate plays on music streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

Streaming fraud has become a priority enforcement area for the recorded music industry. In February, IFPI<\/strong> Chief Executive Victoria Oakley<\/strong> and RIAA<\/strong> CEO Mitch Glazier<\/strong> co-authored an op-ed published by MBW<\/a> calling on the industry to take coordinated action against fraudulent streaming activity. Oakley<\/strong> and Glazier<\/strong> argued that fraudsters exploit gaps in platform protections, deploying bot armies to generate artificial plays and divert income from legitimate creators \u2014 a problem they said has been industrialized by generative AI.<\/p>\n

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Brazil<\/strong> is one of the world’s fastest-growing recorded music markets. According to the IFPI<\/strong>‘s Global Music Report 2026<\/em>, published last month, Brazil<\/strong> ranked as the world’s eighth-largest recorded music market in 2025<\/a>, up one place from the prior year. Latin America<\/strong> was the fastest-growing region globally, with revenues up 17.1%<\/strong> year-on-year.<\/p>\n

The same report flagged streaming fraud as one of two themes shaping the industry’s next chapter. Oakley<\/strong> said at the time of the report’s release that the organizations “with the data, scale and leverage to prevent this fraudulent activity, including streaming services, content aggregators and distributors, must take decisive action.”<\/p>\n

The court’s order for “dynamic” domain blocking \u2014 extending to any related domains, not just the primary URL \u2014 reflects an enforcement approach designed to prevent operators from simply relaunching under a new web address, a tactic common among providers of artificial engagement services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another blow to fake streams as Brazil escalates its fight against platforms selling artificial music engagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7183,"featured_media":254892,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[102],"class_list":["post-254884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ifpi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7183"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254884"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":254915,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254884\/revisions\/254915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}