The U.S. Copyright Office published a notice in the Federal Register on October 7 asking the public what it knows about music streaming fraud. The Office says it is acting "[p]ursuant to a congressional request"; the notice proposes no rule.
Who asked, and how
The request came as a letter dated May 21, 2026, from Representative Scott Fitzgerald of the Committee on the Judiciary, to Shira Perlmutter, Register of Copyrights. The notice calls it "the Congressional Request" and says public comments, with the Office's own research, "may contribute to Congress's understanding of streaming fraud, current efforts to curb this problem, and potential solutions." It does not say Congress has committed to a bill.
What the notice describes
Quoting an industry group's explainer, the notice says streaming fraud "can be defined as" using "deceptive, inappropriate, or unpermitted methods to artificially increase the number of streams a song or album receives" for notoriety or money. It names bot farms, click farms, playlist stuffing and account hijacking, plus what it calls "copyright fraud": claiming someone else's original work as your own, or uploading and claiming a manipulated version of it, sometimes called "carbon copying" or "ghost tracking." It cites a Digital Media Association estimate that streaming is "now driving around 70% of global sales," and describes a criminal case in which a defendant pleaded guilty in March 2026 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud after fraudulently collecting "some $10 million in royalties" from bot streams of songs made with AI.
The notice explains why that reaches other musicians: streaming services commonly pay rightsholders out of "royalty pools" funded by a share of their revenue, and the more a song is played, the more its rightsholders receive. A fraudulent play still draws from that pool. That, the notice says, is the primary harm: "the dilution of the royalty revenue pool."
The ten questions
The notice lists ten numbered questions: how fraud schemes work and how common they are; which industry practices might inadvertently enable fraud; the economic impact; fraud's ties to "the effects of AI-generated [music]"; its relationship to live music, including venue selection, ticket sales and "secondary sales (e.g., food and beverage, merchandise, parking, etc.)"; what anti-fraud methods have worked; how ownership and usage data could help; possible voluntary, statutory or regulatory solutions; criminal enforcement; and any other recommendations for Congress.
The dates and how to comment
Written comments must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on November 23, 2026. Written reply comments must be received no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on December 21, 2026. The notice carries the Office's own Docket No. 2026-6; the Federal Register's record of it lists the regulations.gov docket as COLC-2026-0166. All comments go through regulations.gov, with instructions at copyright.gov/policy/music-streaming-fraud. Anyone without access to a computer or the internet is told to call the Office at (202) 707-8350 for special instructions.
A notice of inquiry is not a rule. This one commits the Office only to gathering information.