Not even Spotify is spared from the garbage generated by AI.
I found it frustrating, as if you have an ear, you can clearly tell that it’s not our music.
Recently, a strange incident occurred on Spotify related to the band HEALTH, whose name was mistakenly associated with several fake albums. The first indication of something unusual appeared when an album with a curious cover showed up in the platform's new releases section, although it lacked the characteristic musical quality of HEALTH. It was later discovered that it was AI-generated content that had been uploaded to the band's page on Spotify. This weekend, three fraudulent albums surfaced under their name. Although the band made jokes about it and the albums were eventually removed, the situation became more complicated when a new album by another artist, Annie, encountered a similar issue: an album that did not contain her actual songs.
Upon playing Annie's album, listeners were met with instrumental melodies and nature sounds instead of her typical compositions. This generated concern and confusion among fans, who wondered how it was possible for the content to distort the musical identity of the artists. Marcos Mena, composer and guitarist of the band Standards, expressed his frustration when a fake album appeared on his Spotify page, which was not removed despite his attempts to contact the streaming service to rectify the mistake.
The problem revolves around how streaming services like Spotify operate, where artists do not upload their music directly, but through distributors. This means that quality control and the accuracy of information largely depend on these intermediaries. When a fake album is introduced, it can be difficult to exclude it since Spotify verifies information based on the distributor's word.
Fraud in streaming music is not a new issue; scammers often upload large volumes of albums with misleading or slightly altered names, hoping to capture the profits generated by listener streams. The recent series of fraudulent albums seems to be a coordinated attempt to exploit the same method, and the presence of distributor names, such as Ameritz Music, in the controversy has raised additional concerns. This situation can not only harm legitimate artists but also distort the royalty system, as the money generated by streams of these fake albums would end up in the wrong hands.
Spotify's preventive measures, which include automated and manual reviews, aim to combat royalty fraud, but they often may not be sufficient. The proliferation of AI-generated music has created a new challenge, becoming an accelerator for fraud that already existed in the online music ecosystem.
Spotify has expressed its commitment to addressing these issues, even severing relationships with licensees that have violated its guidelines. However, the fight against streaming fraud is complex and requires constant vigilance from distribution services and music platforms to ensure that the integrity of artists' music is maintained.
