Spotify cracks down on AI-generated music catalogues
The war with AI technology in music begins
The war with AI technology in music begins as Spotify cracks down on AI-generated music catalogues
As more companies begin to experiment with artificial intelligence to create music, Spotify is taking action to ensure that its music catalogues remain authentic. The popular music streaming platform seems to be taking a side approach on AI-generated music.
AI music startup Boomy has revealed that its distribution pipeline to Spotify has been cut off.
“Very recently, Spotify stopped publishing new releases from Boomy. Additionally, certain catalog releases were removed from their platform,” the company announced in its Discord server.
Boomy’s service enables anyone to create music, edit it and/or add vocals, then package tracks up into albums for release on streaming services. The company has warned its community that Spotify may not be the only DSP to see this kind of blockage. Nearly 14.4m songs have been created using Boomy since its launch in 2019.
According to a Press release put forth by Spotify, the removals are NOT due to Boomy’s music being AI-generated. It’s about patterns of activity around some of that music.
“Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service,” said Spotify’s spokesperson.
“When we identify or are alerted to potential cases of stream manipulation, we mitigate their impact by taking action that may include the removal of streaming numbers and the withholding of royalties. This allows us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hardworking artists.”
Removing tracks from Spotify is nothing new. They have been removing music from the Spotify Platform siting Suspicious streaming activity since 2017. In 2021, over 750,000 tracks were removed in a site wide purge which coincidently aligned with the platforms crashing balance sheet to investors. Many of the tracks removed at that time were not involved with suspicious streaming according to our reporting but had little recourse moving forward. Artists were tossed back and forth between Spotify customer service and their distributors with little details and no resolutions on the matter given.
What is Suspicious Streaming?
Typically it equates to the purchase of streams on any track. A Spotify bot is a software that can grow your Spotify account by adding followers, increasing your content streams, and saving your playlists, among other things. Getting more engagement to your account makes it more visible and easier to discover for organic Spotify users and increases the royalty paid out by Spotify. This is considered fraud as it’s a game on the system and creates unfair results. When Spotify catches this, they flag the users account and delete the tracks in question. Spotify has a no exceptions rule on this and never appears to re-instate the track once it has been flagged and removed. The royalties are also forfeited.
Concerns raised that some AI-generated music is not authentic
This year 2023, the move comes after concerns were raised that some AI-generated music could be passing as authentic music, deceiving listeners. As AI technology in music continues to advance, it remains to be seen how this technology will be regulated within the industry.
We are already seeing infringement lawsuits across all areas in music.
While some artists are trying to squash copycat tracks generated with artificial intelligence, others are attempting to go with the flow.
As technology advances, AI makes it possible to replicate music styles and genres with stunning accuracy. With the well-documented explosion of artificial intelligence music continuing to evolve, a number of AI tracks made to sound like releases from The Beatles and other 20th century acts are becoming increasingly prevalent on YouTube and elsewhere.
While some artists are playing a game of wak-a-mole trying to squash copycat tracks generated with AI, others are attempting to go with the flow.
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