Spotify is back in the spotlight after being exposed for releasing AI-composed songs under the names of dead artists. This is a huge slap in the music industry.
An investigation revealed that computer-generated songs appeared on the official accounts of late artists without asking their estates or record labels' permission.
AI Songs Under Deceased Artists
404 Media reported that the most obvious case is the song "Together," which appeared on Blake Foley's official profile, a country singer murdered in 1989.
The song does not remotely sound like Foley's music, but the photo that comes with it features a young blonde guy and not Foley. The news outlet followed the song back to a Spotify-associated company profile called Syntax Error, which has also been associated with a string of other fake releases.
AI Misuse: Fake Tracks Ascribed to Actual Artists
According to The Next Web, there was also a case with a song called "Happened To You." It was falsely ascribed to Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Guy Clark, who died in 2016. The song was once again tracked back to Syntax Error, sparking concerns over Spotify's surveillance on AI music.
Spotify quickly took down the unauthorized materials after the story broke. Yet, this is not a one-off situation. The site has been experiencing an increasing tide of AI-generated music posing as legitimate content.
AI-Generated Bands Getting Popular on Spotify
Earlier this month, Tech Times reported that AI band Velvet Sundown went viral on Spotify. Its song "Dust on the Wind," hauntingly similar to Kansas's 1977 hit of the same name, accumulated close to two million streams since it came out June 20.
While its bio now describes the band as a "synthetic music project," Spotify doesn't mark any of its songs as AI-created, so many listeners don't know.
This opacity is troubling, particularly given that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has openly advocated for enabling AI-produced tracks, except where they directly copy actual artists. Nonetheless, Spotify's inconsistency in detecting and deleting such material is increasingly becoming a pressing issue.
How Did the Music Industry Respond
The music community isn't keeping quiet. British Phonographic Industry Chief Strategy Officer Sophie Jones reported to The Guardian that AI models are being trained on copyrighted music without permission or payback, an action she says is undermining human creativity.
Jones said that tech companies allow the AI band to operate without authorization to compete head-to-head with human creativity.
The concern is two-pronged: AI-created content not only vies for streams and royalties but also deceives listeners at the expense of actual artists' credibility.
To fight the problem, industry executives are demanding clear indication of AI content on streaming services — something Deezer has already done.
The French streaming company created an algorithm that can identify songs created using AI software such as Suno and Udio.
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