Lady Gaga Criticised By Billboard Boss

Lady Gaga has been criticised by Billboard boss Bill Werde for promoting the inflation of views for her new music video.

The US Hot 100 recently adjusted their chart-placing formula to include online streams, which include the number of clicks an online lyrics video, audio stream or music video gets on YouTube and VEVO.

Gaga urged her fans to watch the clip for her new single 'Applause' and then retweet it to urge other fans to dramatically inflate the number of streams. She also tweeted a link to watch the video on loop for nine hours.

Werde explained: "We count multiple views per person. Go to VEVO and keep watching a video on your own and we count it," 

"An artist tweeting out and facebooking a link that enables a fan to hit play and leave their computer is not in the spirit of what we chart,"

"Tweeting that other artists game the system is like telling a cop other people were speeding. When we catch it we stop it."

He continued: "Please keep this in context. Streaming is only a portion of Hot100 and surely overwhelming percent of views have been well-earned,"

"I just hate to see anyone try to game the charts, be it fans or artists. It's not in the spirit of what we do, celebrating success."

Gaga's fans were accused of creating YouTube playlists that would contain the same 'Applause' video 150 times, clicking play and letting the streams accumulate through the night.

However, after being asked by super producer Dr Luke about the streaming scam, Werde added: "I''m pretty sure YouTube spam filters catch it. Will confirm tmw."

Lady Gaga's new single 'Applause' is estimated to have sold around 225,000 copies during its first week on sale in the US.