Beware of bots, Spotify is cracking down on artificial streaming.
Spotify has removed tens of thousands of songs created by artificial intelligence startup Boomy, reports FinancialTimes(opens in a new tab). The streaming giant removed the songs after Universal Music flagged the songs for suspicious streaming activity. The songs were removed from the platform over the alleged use of bots to inflate streams, a practice known as artificial streaming.
While AI anxiety has increased in the music industry, particularly due to copyright issues, these removals were not directly related to the methods used to generate the songs, but rather how they got their stream count.
Boomy was launched two years ago and allows users to produce AI-generated music based on styles and descriptors such as “meditation” or “lofibeats”. Then, users can upload tracks created by Boomy to streaming platforms and earn royalties from them. According his website(opens in a new tab), Boomy has produced over 14.5 million songs, which they claim represents almost 14% of the music recorded worldwide. Spotify reportedly removed 7% of Boomy’s tracks.
“Artificial streaming is a long-standing industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to eradicate across our service,” Spotify said. The Financial Times.
In Spotify quarterly financial call in April(opens in a new tab), CEO Daniel Elk described the AI-generated music as “cool and spooky” and remarked that it “could be potentially huge for creativity”. But Elk also noted that the music industry has “legitimate concerns” about the rise of AI-generated music and said, “We’re working with our partners to try to establish a position where we allow both innovation but, at the same time, protecting all the creators we have on our platform.”
This withdrawal comes one month after Universal has called on streaming services to crack down on AI-generated music(opens in a new tab) due to copyright issues. Right after, music executives’ nightmares came true when an AI-generated collab between Drake and The Weeknd, “Heart On My Sleeve,” went viral on TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube. As the track was removed from streaming platforms due to copyright violations, it has caused a new wave of AI-related anxiety.
