The services that claim they can increase the number of streams on music services that Spotify is often referred to as "Spotify marketing", and can mean from paying for a spot on a playlist with many followers to buying streams and new followers, it says Hugo Lindqvist, reporter at Dagens Nyheter who has mapped the phenomenon.

- It is a very complex and open market. If you just google, you will find a lot of ways to buy streams or raise their status on various music services. Then there is probably a hidden market that you have no knowledge of, says Hugo Lindkvist in SVT's Morning Studio.

Used as substrate

And the number of streams is anything but unimportant for an artist, says music journalist Ametist Azordegan, who in a post on Facebook directs sharp criticism of the phenomenon.

- I have sat in almost all music awards jury and there you discuss streaming figures as an argument when nominating artists at different music awards or even when they are voted as winners.

- There is a problem with the credibility of the music industry that is based on the use of streaming figures as a basis, says Ametist Azordegan in SVT's Morning Studio.

It is difficult to pin down how widespread the problem is and neither in DN's review nor in Ametist's Facebook posts do any names of artists who may have manipulated numbers appear.

SVT has sought Spotify, which states in a statement that they work hard to counteract the manipulation of streams, and describes the phenomenon as an industry problem. Spotify has previously written in a statement to DN that they are improving their methods to "detect, remove and reduce the effect that artificial manipulation has on legitimate music creators, rights holders and our users".

See more of the conversation in the clip above.