And ... I am not sure now what. There is a online radio station thing (tidal) that has dishonest numbers.
But why would you trust those numbers outside of tidal unless you had some independnat verification ?
Is there any such independnat verification of say Apple store downloads ?
If not how do we solve both problems?
The real sticking point here is the music industry has many untouchable characters in it, witness how #METOO barely if at all can make a dent in it especially the rap music side. so unless some other artists who have real pull can show they have lost real money this will get buried. There is a story Kayne West is after TIDAL for money but how far is he willing to buck that system?
Plus the dataset is tainted - it's not trying to spot if people have been pretend listening to beyoncé songs, and picking their trees from the forest, it's that every tree in the forest has been artificially raised up. If you don't know that how AI tell?
I do agree on your second point though.
hmmm i wonder if the blockchain can be used for this