King Gizzard AI copycat evaded Spotify detection for weeks after band's protest exit

An AI copycat of King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard went unnoticed on Spotify for weeks

Despite making some moves to address the proliferation of AI-generated audio on its platform, Spotify failed to catch a copycat making imitations of music by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard. The long-running experimental rock band from Australia, has been a vocal critic of Spotify and was one of several artists that took their music off the platform in the summer. The move was in response to the discovery that outgoing CEO Daniel Ek was a leading investor in an AI-focused weapons and military company. Today, a poster on Reddit was recommended what appeared to be an AI-generated copy of one of the band's songs in Spotify's Release Radar playlist. The phony artist was called King Lizard Wizard and it had an album of tracks all sharing titles with songs by the original band and using their original lyrics. Futurism grabbed screenshots of the imposter, although it appears to have since been taken down; only the band's original page appears in searches for both their name and the AI name. However, the phony King Gizzard band's album went unnoticed by the company for weeks before today's social post surfaced it. The Reddit thread points to several other anecdotal cases where someone attempted to trick listeners with AI-generated versions of popular bands. In September, Spotify unveiled a spam filter for catching AI slop, as well as policies for disclosing AI use in the content it hosts and how it would tackle AI impersonations. An instance like this, particularly when it features an artist that had left the platform in protest, creates a pretty big question mark about how well those policies are working.

'We are truly doomed': King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard despair at AI clone appearing on Spotify

Australian psych-rockers, who removed their music from Spotify in protest against the streaming service, lament the appearance of AI band King Lizard Wizard Spotify has removed an AI impersonator of popular Australian rockers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard from the streaming service, with the band's frontman voicing despair at the situation. King Gizzard removed their music from Spotify in July in a protest against the company's chief executive Daniel Ek, who is the chair of military technology company Helsing as well as a major investor. Clearly attempting to fill the void, earlier this month a new artist appeared on Spotify called King Lizard Wizard, featuring AI-generated takes on the band's psychedelic rock, identical song titles, and AI-generated artwork that weakly imitated the band's fantastical album sleeves. Spotify has now removed King Lizard Wizard from its service, saying: "Spotify strictly prohibits any form of artist impersonation. The content in question was removed for violating our platform policies, and no royalties were paid out for any streams generated." Stu Mackenzie, King Gizzard's frontman, said he was "trying to see the irony in this situation" after the band's earlier departure from Spotify, but added: "Seriously wtf - we are truly doomed." AI-generated music is proving to be hugely contentious, and has quickly become one of the most discussed issues in the music industry. In September, Spotify announced it had removed 75m tracks thought to be made by AI artists last year, as fraudsters attempt to generate income by flooding the platform with fake artists who can generate royalty payouts. There have also been instances of "deepfake" versions of popular artists such as Drake being uploaded online. But while most of these tracks are caught in spam filters and never make it on to the platform, or are swiftly removed if they do, AI-generated or enhanced music is likely to become more popular. Currently in the UK Top 40 is I Run by British dance duo Haven, whose original version featured AI-manipulated vocals. Haven's Harrison Walker admitted to using AI, saying: "As a songwriter and producer I enjoy using new tools, techniques and staying on the cutting edge of what's happening." The song became a viral success but was removed from streaming services after takedown requests from labels and industry bodies alleging that the voice generated by AI too closely imitated British singer Jorja Smith. Haven then rerecorded I Run with human vocals, though Smith's label Famm alleges that both versions "infringe on Jorja's rights and unfairly take advantage of the work of all the songwriters with whom she collaborates". Haven have not responded to Famm's claim. AI-generated music is anticipated to enter the mainstream, though, when the tools become available to the general public. In recent weeks, major labels Universal and Warner have struck deals with the companies Udio and Suno, which will allow users to create AI music from the work of real artists signed to those labels (with artists able to opt in and out of making their music available). Speaking to the Guardian this week, Eurythmics producer Dave Stewart described AI in music as an "unstoppable force", and argued: "Everybody should be selling or licensing their voice and their skills to these companies." But others have voiced concern. After the deal between Universal and Udio, Irving Azoff, founder of the Music Artists Coalition in the US, warned that artists could "end up on the sidelines with scraps", adding: "Every technological advance offers opportunity, but we have to make sure it doesn't come at the expense of the people who actually create the music - artists and songwriters ... artists must have creative control, fair compensation and clarity about deals being done based on their catalogues."

King Gizzard Pulled Their Music From Spotify in Protest, and Now Spotify Is Hosting AI Knockoffs of Their Songs

"I find this absolutely deplorable and am now quitting my account." Acclaimed Australian prog rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard joined a growing number of artists when it left Spotify in July. At the time, band leader Stu Mackenzie took aim at Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, excoriating him for investing in an AI weapons company. "We've been saying f*** Spotify for years," Mackenzie told the Los Angeles Times. "In our circle of musician friends, that's what people say all the time, for all of these other reasons which are well documented." But in a technological twist, impersonators are now using generative AI to clone the band's iconic sound. A user on Reddit was recently recommended a track on his Release Radar that was a clear knockoff of the real King Gizzard, alerting them to the scheme. The track spotted by the Reddit user, called "Rattlesnake," is listed under an artist with the incredibly similar name "King Lizard Wizard" -- which is striking, because the real King Gizzard also has a song called "Rattlesnake." The similarities don't end there: the fake version of the song, which is clearly AI-generated, has identical lyrics to King Gizzard's original version, along with a notably similar composition. In fact, every song uploaded by the knockoff "King Lizard" artist on Spotify has the same title as an actual King Gizzard song, with its corresponding lyrics ripped straight from the source, suggesting the perpetrator fed the lyrics into an AI music generator and instructed it to copy the band's sound. A quick search for "King Gizzard" on the platform brings up the band's abandoned official profile, with "King Lizard Wizard" being recommended immediately below it. The fact that Spotify has let the knockoff band proliferate on its platform -- where it's accumulated tens of thousands of streams since uploading the tracks last month -- is especially egregious because King Gizzard has already been targeted by impersonators on its service. As Platfomer reported last month, Spotify was previously overrun by another King Gizzard impersonator that uploaded "muzak" versions of the band's songs. In other words, if there's one band that Spotify should be manually monitoring for AI rip-offs, it's King Gizzard, but it's clearly making no such effort. Spotify didn't reply to a request for comment. The fake band's album art also appears to be AI-generated, and has been live on Spotify for weeks. Adding insult to injury, some of the fake tracks even list Mackenzie as the "composer" and "lyricist." A quick search for "King Gizzard" on the platform brings up the band's abandoned official profile, with "King Lizard Wizard" being recommended immediately below it. The top song result for the search is the AI band's ripped off version of "Rattlesnake." Unsurprisingly, the unsavory attempt at cashing in on a band that pointedly departed Spotify didn't sit well with many fans. "A bad AI ripoff, from aesthetics to band name, copying their songs," wrote the Reddit user who discovered the track on their Spotify account. "I find this absolutely deplorable and am now quitting my account." The incident highlights how Spotify is seriously struggling with content moderation in an age increasingly being defined by a barrage of AI slop. The company announced new policies to protect artists against "spam, impersonation, and deception" in September. But given the AI imitations that are still invading Release Radar and Discover Weekly playlists, which the company prominently recommends to its users, it's clear that the company is struggling to meaningfully address the issue. We've come across previous egregious examples, like a dubious track that claimed to be performed by Bon Iver frontman Justin Vernon's 2000s side project Volcano Choir -- but in reality was AI slop. While Spotify has said it will be cracking down on spam and impersonation, AI-generated music is technically allowed on the platform -- some of which has even turned out to be a major hit, with an AI country song even topping a digital Billboard chart.