Spotify rapped over AI music amid calls for fair pay to human artists

Spotify’s content moderation has come under scrutiny as the streaming giant appears to be recommending AI-generated music to consumers. The platform has pinned the “Verified Artist” badge to allegedly non-existent artists whose deepfake music has run into hundreds of thousands of plays.

Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of Fairly Trained and former VP of audio at Stability AI, complained that the loophole threatens the streamshare of human artists. “It’s clear this is going to eat into the royalties and the revenue streams paid to real human musicians,” he said, as reported by Fast Company.

Spotify urged to ban AI music used without consent

While Spotify does not outlaw AI-generated content, the Fairly Trained CEO views it as a double-barreled prejudice against human artists. AI applications used to produce music are exploiting the work of human artists without compensating them.

“Spotify just straight up shouldn’t allow music on the platform that is using models where there’s serious concern that they are trained on other musicians’ work without permission,” said Newton-Rex whose non-profit accredits AI companies for fair data sourcing.

For AI music that is allowed, the ethicist argues:

“They [Spotify] should label it so that people can make a choice as to whether they listen to it. . . . And I think Spotify probably shouldn’t be recommending it.”

One red flag concerning AI artists is the lack of online or media presence outside Spotify. An alleged example of the fakes, Jet Fuel & Ginger Ales, has a verified badge and has amassed 414,500 monthly listeners.

Other examples include bands like Awake Past 3, Gutter Grinders and supposed “Citrus Reticulata” labelmates Sofia Pitcher, Jefferson Petersen, Zolia Zayas, Alvaro Cantu, Isabella Carpinelli, Diego Tobia, Craig Penry and Saul Deleon.

The allegedly non-existent Sofia Pitcher reached 3, 000 monthly listeners between December 2023 and March 2024. Her disappearance was likely the outcome of a vigilance operation by Spotify.

Pitcher’s removed album, Stone Age, consisted of ten instrumental songs whose runtime never went past a minute and a half. While seemingly conceptual, her song titles “Rock”, “Cave”, “Hunter”, and “Clan” may have been simple enough to err on the safe side of streamers’ attention span.

AI is seen as a way to ‘make a fast buck’

As reported by Fast Company, streaming expert Enric Calabuig said that fake Spotify labels may be involved in stream farming – a practice where premium accounts spread across hundreds of mobile terminals generate automated replays.

Playlist Alert founder, Kieron Donoghue, considers the upsurge of AI songs innocuous. “It’s just a case of some people trying to make a fast buck, like they’ve always done on Spotify,” he said. “I don’t see it as a threat as it stands now to anyone’s livelihoods.”

The trend comes into focus as mainstream musicians such as Kanye West and Eminem are said to be turning to artificial intelligence to produce earlier or more intense versions of their voices.

Eminem resurrected his alter ego, Slim Shady, through Metaphysic, a company that gives artists ownership of their biometric data such as vocal or facial likeness in the age of AI.