New Stream Manipulation Report: Disguised Listening

At Apple Music, we take stream manipulation seriously, and we believe everyone has a role to play to prevent it. To continue aiding in monitoring your content, we launched the new Disguised Listening Report in addition to our existing set of reporting tools.

New Disguised Listening Report

Manipulative users may target a specific piece of content while streaming unrelated content alongside it, in an attempt to disguise that behavior. The new Disguised Listening Report shows you where your content has been used as cover for manipulation of other content. Disguised Listening activity is not counted towards the Stream Manipulation Adjustment.

The report will be available through the Music Analytics API beginning September 28, 2026. See the Endpoint Descriptions section of the Music Analytics API guide for the latest field definitions, request formats, and availability details.

Existing reports remain available

Partners are still encouraged to review existing reports and take action. Here are our existing reports:

• Flagged Streams Reports and In Review Content Reports continue on a daily basis.
• Excluded Streams Reports continue to align with the fiscal period of your Apple Music financial reports.
  
• S2 financial reports remain accessible via Reporter and iTunes Connect. The Stream Manipulation Adjustment field shows the amount of your total royalty payment that may be adjusted for the period due to stream manipulation.
  

For details on any of the above, refer to the Endpoint Descriptions section of the Music Analytics API guide and the iTunes Connect Payments and Financial Reports Guide.

We are committed to creating a fair and level playing field where success and growth are based on genuine listener activity. By providing our content partners with the tools to monitor their content and act quickly, we aim to further this commitment together.