It’s been clear for a while that a deluge of AI slop is drowning out real music and human artists on Spotify.
The platform has become overrun by bots and AI-spun trickery, which have actively been scamming revenue from real bands.
Earlier this year, a self-proclaimed “indie rock band” called The Velvet Sundown racked up millions of streams on the streaming service using AI-generated songs. Weeks later, the company was caught populating the profiles of long-dead artists with new AI-generated songs that have nothing to do with them.
Now Spotify has finally acknowledged the problem, announcing new policies to protect artists against “spam, impersonation, and deception.”
“At its worst, AI can be used by bad actors and content farms to confuse or deceive listeners, push ‘slop’ into the ecosystem, and interfere with authentic artists working to build their careers,” the company wrote. “That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties to bad actors.”
Spotify head of marketing and policy Sam Duboff told reporters at a press briefing that 15 record labels and music distributors had committed to the changes already, The Verge reported.
The company is also planning to roll out a new spam filter that can detect common tactics used by spammers to game Spotify’s royalties system.
“Left unchecked, these behaviors can dilute the royalty pool and impact attention for artists playing by the rules,” the company wrote in its press release.
But just one day later, a new AI scandal on Spotify showed the magnitude of the undertaking.
The issue arose when an acclaimed and long-dormant side project by Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon, called Volcano Choir, unexpectedly uploaded a new single called “Silkymoon Light” after being on hiatus for more than a decade.
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