YouTube have cancelled billions of music video views claiming that they were faked.

The move means that many high profile artists have seen the number of views on many of their songs dramatically decrease.

The move comes after the video streaming site has decided to crack down on hackers faking the number of views that videos receive and has meant that big record companies have lost a lot of the views that their artists have accrued.

Universal has allegedly suffered a loss of over a billion views across its artists and Sony has seen a loss of 850 million, according to newspaper the Daily Mail.

A representative for YouTube said: "This was not a bug or a security breach. This was an enforcement of our view count policy."

The move from YouTube is a response to hackers building ever more effective ways of getting around the site's security. measures and artificially boosting the number of views on certain videos.

Many artists have suffered what looks likes decrease in popularity as a result including Leona Lewis who has reportedly lost 24 million views as part of the initiative.

Music industry insiders have spoken out blaming a fall in view counts on many music videos being hosted on rival sites such as vevo.

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