The age of AI-generated music was inevitable from the moment Sam Altman unleashed ChatGPT onto the world. It wasn’t long before AI-generated music began running rampant on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, with the former going so far as to confirm that it had removed over 75 million “spammy tracks” from the platform.
“The future of the music industry is being written, and we believe that aggressively protecting against the worst parts of Gen AI is essential to enabling its potential for artists and producers,” Spotify said in a statement.
AI is for me, and not for thee
To be clear, Spotify isn’t against Gen AI as a whole. Spotify reckons it still has a place, but, importantly, only when artists and producers opt to incorporate it into their creative processes. Rather, the streamer is taking a stand against “spam, impersonation, and deception,” with hopes to provide listeners “with greater transparency…”
There’s still a long way to go. Spotify claims it’s been fighting spam for the better part of a decade, and that the widespread adoption of AI has only made the fight that much harder. The company aims to constantly release new policies that target these issues, with the most recent tackling the enforcement of impersonation violations, the addition of a new spam filter, and AI disclosures for music “with industry-standard credits.”
With AI deepfakes being available to just about anyone, it’s forced Spotify to rethink its policies on impersonation that “clarifies how we handle claims about AI voice clones (and other forms of unauthorized vocal impersonation)…” Spotify makes it clear that impersonation is only allowed when the impersonated allow it.
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Next up is the new spam filter, which Spotify feels is a necessity as music payments reached a massive $10 billion in 2024. This sort of cash attracts bad actors. The streamer hopes the inclusion of a new filter can help root out the main tactics, such as mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, “artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop.”
Arriving later this year, the spam filter will automatically detect those engaging in these tactics, tag them, and banish them to the shadow realm. In other words, stop recommending them to users. Spotify will roll the filter out slowly to ensure it isn’t accidentally affecting the wrong uploaders. The idea is to keep the royalty pool from becoming too diluted and sending the money where it’s meant to go.
Finally, for those tracks and artists that incorporate AI into their creative processes, Spotify will require them to disclose the fact — whether it’s used for AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production. Users can then avoid or seek out any AI-generated tracks as they see fit by simply checking the credits.
