For a couple of years now, music streaming platforms like Spotify have been swamped with low-quality, mass-produced AI songs. While fans can usually avoid these tracks, it creates real problems for actual musicians. So much of this “AI slop” gets uploaded that some of it is falsely credited to real artists on these platforms.
This mix-up hurts an artist’s brand and makes it harder for them to keep their audience. Thankfully, Spotify is now testing a new tool to help real artists get more control over their profiles. The platform’s “Artist Profile Protection” feature lets musicians look at new releases before they go live and become linked to their profiles.
This new tool should stop unwanted AI music from appearing on an artist’s page. The actual artist will have the final say when, for example, 100 new songs suddenly pop up that sound a bit like them but without any real emotion. The tool is currently in a testing phase. If an artist rejects a track, it won’t be associated with their profile, won’t affect their stats, and won’t show up in user recommendations. This seems like a simple and effective way to deal with an ongoing problem.
“Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse,” Spotify wrote in a blog post. “We know how frustrating this can be for both artists and fans alike.”
This announcement comes just a week after Sony asked Spotify to remove over 135,000 AI-generated songs. It turned out these tracks were pretending to be made by real artists. This problem even affects bands that have left Spotify entirely. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, for instance, left the platform last year to protest CEO Daniel Ek’s investment in a weapons company, but a deepfake artist quickly filled their space with AI-generated music.
Sometimes, these misattributions aren’t even done on purpose. For the “creators” of these AI tracks, it’s often a numbers game. Estimates vary, but around 50,000 AI-generated songs are uploaded to Spotify every single day. Last year alone, the platform deleted 75 million of these tracks. With so many uploads, it’s easy for some to accidentally end up on the wrong artist’s profile. Of course, bad actors who intentionally try to link their low-quality music to popular artists make the issue even worse.
In any case, it’s good that Spotify is finally doing something about this. We don’t know yet when this tool will be available for all artists on the platform, but that day can’t come soon enough for many musicians.
