Anti-Fraud Policy

1. Introduction

This Anti-Fraud Policy sets a course of action for Clients of our platform and services, and defines the actions taken and the consequences of fraudulent behavior.
Specifically, the purpose of this Policy is to provide:
● A clear definition of what is considered as “Fraud”.
● A summary of the Client’s responsibilities in avoiding fraud-related activities.
● Guidance to all parties involved as to action which should be taken when there is a strong suspicion or evidence of fraudulent activity.
● Protection to right holders in circumstances where they may be penalized as a consequence of fraudulent activities.

This document is intended to provide guidance and should be read in conjunction with:
● The Terms of Service (the contract signed between the Client and InterSpace Distribution)
● The Privacy Policy.

2. Definitions

Client: Is the person or legal entity that has entered into a contractual relationship with InterSpace Distribution for the use of the platform, accepting the Terms of Use and providing content that will be made available on DSP. 
Client Account: Accounts owned and/or created by Clients.
DSP: Digital Streaming Platforms (such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, etc.) or any other channel connected to the InterSpace Distribution.
MDFS: Monetization through Digital Fingerprinting Systems (i.e. YouTube Content ID, Facebook Rights Manager, among others).
Fraud: Any activity contrary to the Law, the DSP Policies and/or our own. Particularly, but nonexclusively, the following activities will be categorized as Fraud:
● The unauthorized exploitation of material protected by Copyright;
● The infringement of any Law that regulates the ownership of legal right holders;
● The use of any artist, band or label names or artwork in a misleading way, which may create confusion or false expectations related to content which is served to consumers by DSP (i.e.,spam, misleading content, fake artists);
● The use of automated, digital bots or other means to “click” on royalties-generating links pretending to be consumers (artificial streams), producing unnatural and irregular incomes;
● The upload of low audiovisual quality content, distorted music, silenced songs, or any other deceptive material;

Royalties: Economic income/revenue generated after the rightful exploitation of any repertoire.

Strike: A strike is a warning applied to any account that violates industry best practices, DSP guidelines and/or our Anti-Fraud Policy. They are separated into two tiers (strike 1 and 2), and applied cumulatively with the particularities displayed in Section 4.2. Strike Policy.

3. State of Affairs

Fraud in all its forms is not tolerated when using our services. This is because when fraud occurs:
● It is not just a loss for Us and the DSP, but ultimately to content creators, damaging their reputation and reducing the royalty pool which is made available by the DSPs to financially compensate creators for a legitimate, commercial use of their work.
● It may have a major impact on our reputation, our contracts with DSP and therefore again on the Clients using our Services. Our objective is to detect, prevent and whenever possible eliminate any fraudulent usage of our Services. Any indications of fraud will be rigorously investigated and dealt with in a firm and controlled way.

3.1. What DSP are doing about it

Most DSP use a mix of algorithms and human resources to scan the content uploaded into their repository to avoid potential fraud, unauthorized and/or artificial streams and abusive use of their service. Once they have identified fraudulent activity they take down the content and inform Us about the case, reserving the right to withhold from future payments any amounts generated from suspicious or illegal activities. For example, spotify will charge the distributor a fine per track for the tracks deemed to be fraudulent.

3.2. What We are doing about it

We are actively taking action in the following fields:
● Functional modules on traffic fraud monitoring are being developed and will be operational by the end of the year.:Monitoring historic sales data to combine this with other information in order to detect potentially irregular activities. And regularly provide you with tracks about possible traffic fraud in your music library. In addition to Spotify, we will also provide you with traffic fraud monitoring results for Apple Music, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Deezer, and other platforms through the InterSpace Distribution CMS.
● Content uploaded into our platform is fingerprinted and matched against several databases to avoid multiple uploads of the same song, uploads of white noise, empty songs, copyrighted materials and any unauthorized type of content.
● Our Quality Control processes are designed to track down the use of assets or metadata that could potentially result in musical spam (repeated submissions), misleading content, copyright infringement and any other type of irregular activity.

3.3. How We deal with Fraud

● In case we detect or have strong suspicions of any unauthorized activities by a specific account, We will apply our Strike Policy, as displayed in Section 4.2., which could ultimately result in blocking the involved account from accessing our service.
● Revenues received in connection with activities violating the Terms of Use, this Anti-Fraud Policy and/or the DSP guidelines may be blocked and retained by DSP.
⚫ If fraud is found in your music library for many times, all tracks in the library will be removed from the shelves together.

3.4. The consequences of a Fraudulent use of Our Platform or Services

● If a Client is deemed breaching the Terms of Use and/or the Anti Fraud Policy, we will have the right to unilaterally ban the Client from our services.
● Any amounts due to an Client from any DSP derived from any fraudulent or unauthorized use of the service may be recouped by withholding such amounts from future payments due to that same Client.
● To the extent any fraudulent and/or infringing activities are determined to be caused by the Client’s actions, the Client will be held responsible for any costs incurred by us or our providers (including legal fees and expenses) in connection therewith. These costs, in addition to other remedies, may be deducted from any future payments.
● Any additional fines imposed by the DSPs will be borne by the respective content providers, and the relevant amount will be deducted from their gross revenues, or if the revenues are insufficient to cover the compensation, the remaining amount of the fine will be paid in full.

4. Severity, Strike Policy and Account Blocking

4.1. Severity

Either during our QC processes, the sales confirmation process or through notifications received from DSP and/or third parties, we may detect fraudulent content, activities and/or accounts. Once detected, these issues are classified into four categories:

● F1: Critical issues related to an Account and Artificial Streams.
● F2: Issues related to Copyright, Intellectual Property or Trademark and Abusive Usage of MDFS.

F1 Critical issues related to an Account and Artificial Streams.
Particularly, but non-exclusively, we will categorize as F1 the following: 
● An account profile contains fake, or deliberately incomplete information, unauthorized content and/or information that belongs to a third party.
● Repeated, inconsistent IP activity versus declared country or address of origin on any given Account Profile.
● To present false ID documents or music licenses as well as deceptive, suspicious documents of any kind.
● Any other evidence that an Client is deliberately trying to avoid proper identification or validation of identity or address.
● Any evidence of the Client having been involved in irregular activities in the past. Any account committing F1 will be permanently blocked, with the consequences displayed in Section 4.3. Blocked Account Policy.
● Repertoires generating a considerable number of streams and/or views and, subsequently, revenues in a short period of time without a minimum, credible background to support it.
● Any suspicious uplift in sales without corresponding numbers or facts to support it.
● To hire shady promotion services in order to generate streams, views and/or followers in an artificial manner (bot-generated).

F2: Issues related to Copyright, Intellectual Property or Trademark and Abusive Usage of MDFS.
Particularly, but non-exclusively, we will categorize as F2 the following:
● Whenever an impersonation of any artist, recording company, unauthorized use of InterSpace Distribution 8 trademarks, distinctive signs, song or album titles, etc., is confirmed.
● A release containing copyrighted material from a rights-holder who did not grant distribution permission to that end.
● Whenever a copyright infringement notification from a DSP and/or any third party is received in relation to a content that has been sent to DSP.
● We receive an infringement claim from the original rights-holder or his/her representative.
● The insertion of an original content within or among a third party’s original copyrighted content, with the intention of taking advantage of such content’s popularity, in order to generate higher income.
● Any sudden, suspicious uplift in sales related to MDFS, without proper historical consistency or plausible reason.

Whenever We, at our sole discretion or through notifications received by DSP and/or third parties detect any of these issues on any account, our Strike Policy will be triggered, as described in Section 4.2.

Problematic Content
In addition to the severities displayed above We may proceed to brand as Problematic Content the following:
– Offensive/Abusive/Defamatory/Obscene/Pornographic content.
– Nazi propaganda, Hate content, Terrorism apology, Cultural Sensitivities.
– Repeated submissions/flooding.
– Generic or Fake artists. – Generic content with low editorial value.
– Public Domain.
– Poor quality sound recording/artwork.

This will trigger the appliance of our Strike Policy, when pertinent and with the consequences displayed below.

4.2. Strike Policy

In case We detect F1, F2 and/or Problematic Content issues in an Account, a strike is applied to the account and additional actions may be required, such as:
● Completing the information details in their “My Account-Personal Settings” profile section.
● Sending Us a copy of an identification document (passport or national ID) as well as rightholding evidence.
● In most cases, We may also request artist profiles, website URLs, social media profiles, as well as any information from the artist in order to contrast this with sales and/or identification data.

If upon request:
a. our notice is deliberately ignored,
b. the requested information is not provided within 3 working days (counting from the day the notice is sent) and/or
c. the infringing or unauthorized activity is confirmed, a strike will be permanently applied to the account, which will have the following consequences:
● Takedown of the problematic content.
● Since strikes are cumulative penalties, if a third strike is reached, the account will be permanently blocked, with the consequences displayed in the following Section.

4.3. Blocked Account Policy

As previously displayed, whenever any violation of our Terms of Use, this Anti-Fraud Policy and/or the agreements we have with DSP happens, the involved account will be blocked.
This will have the following implications:
● Its entire catalogue will be taken down.
● Blocked accounts will not be able to access the platform and, therefore, use our services.
● The royalties accrued and pending settlement up to and from the time the possible breach arises shall be subject to retention and escrow until the parties inform InterSpace Distribution that they have resolved the dispute or breach detected. After five years (5) from the last action aimed at resolving the dispute that the parties have taken with InterSpace’s knowledge, InterSpace shall give the respective deposits (or escrow) the destination provided for by Nigerian Law.
● In the context of a dispute, the disputing parties shall inform us about the result of the dispute, so we can determine what amounts should be returned to them, including incurred expenses or economic claims, penalties or compensations determined by Law. Once this process has concluded, and the escrow period has passed, any remaining funds will be released (if claimed).

4.4. Takedowns

We will initiate takedowns of any fraudulent content found in any account, according to section 4. Severity, Strike Policy and Account Blocking.

We, at our sole discretion, may also initiate takedowns for the entire repertoire of any account involved in irregular activities.

Please also note that any content detected as infringing or content guidelines will be taken down proactively by DSP at their sole discretion.

5. Initiative

In response to the aforementioned anti-fraud policy, InterSpace Distribution is now formally proposing initiatives in collaboration with our partners:
1. Please refrain from engaging in activities that artificially increase play counts, including self-promotion or the use of third-party paid services that promise increased traffic and guaranteed playlist placement (legitimate marketing and playlist services do not involve cash transactions);
2. Avoid participating in activities that artificially boost user engagement, whether through self-initiated actions or third-party services, using manual or automated methods to generate bulk short videos on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube; for detailed information on anti-fraud measures, please carefully review the above anti-fraud terms.
3. Exercise caution when selecting third-party promotional services; thoroughly review any third-party marketing agencies or playlist services before engaging with them.

Last updated: July 12, 2023