Spotify lets artists manually approve releases to combat AI fakes flooding music platforms

Spotify is letting artists manually approve releases to combat AI fakes

Spotify is beta-testing a new feature called Artist Profile Protection that lets artists review releases before they go live. Sometimes songs end up on the wrong artist pages because of metadata mixups or shared names. But increasingly, artists have been targeted by impostors and AI-generated fakes. Profile Protection offers a buffer against bad actors. Everyone from Drake and Beyonce, to experimental composers like William Basinski, and indie rock acts like King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have had fake tracks appear under their names on streaming platforms, with some that were likely AI-generated. It's an issue that has stoked a lot of anger among artists, with King Gizzard frontman Stu Mackenzie saying, "we are truly doomed," and Basinski calling it "total bullshit." Artists who are included in the beta will still have to opt in. From then on, any music will need to be approved before it will be displayed on that profile, either by the artist themselves or their team. The review process adds an extra step to releasing songs on Spotify. While it's certainly a welcome added level of protection, if every streaming service required you to approve every release manually, it could become a serious problem for independent artists and small labels with limited resources. So Spotify is also issuing artist keys to beta participants. This is a unique code that, when included with the music, triggers an automatic approval. Right now, Spotify is calling the feature a "limited beta," but says that it will roll it out to "all artists as soon as we possibly can."

Spotify is testing a tool to help real artists deal with AI slop on their profiles

Low-quality, mass-produced AI songs have been flooding music streaming platforms like Spotify for a couple of years now. This is annoying, but relatively easy for fans to avoid. However, it leads to real problems for artists. There's so much slop coming in that some gets falsely attributed to actual musicians on these platforms. This messes with brand identity and audience retention, but Spotify is testing a new tool to help real artists exercise more control over their profiles. The platform's Artist Profile Protection feature lets musicians review releases before they go live and become associated with their profiles. This should prevent AI slop from creeping in, as the actual artist will have final say when 100 new songs show up out of the blue that sort of sound like them but with all of that pesky soul removed. It's in beta right now and if an artist denies a track, it won't be associated with their profile, won't contribute to stats and won't show up in user recommendations. This looks to be a simple and potentially effective solution to 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 comes just a week after Sony requested the removal of more than 135,000 AI-generated songs from Spotify after it was discovered the tracks were impersonating real artists. This even happens to bands that have opted out of Spotify entirely. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard left the platform last year, to protest CEO Daniel Ek's investment in a weapons manufacturing company, but a deepfake artist quickly filled the vacuum. Some of this isn't malicious. It's a numbers game for the "creators" of these tracks. Statistics vary, but it's been estimated that around 50,000 AI-generated songs get uploaded to Spotify each and every day. The platform deleted 75 million of these tracks last year. With this many uploads, it's easy for tracks to accidentally end up on the wrong artist's profile. Bad actors looking to attach their slop to a known quantity compounds the issue. In any event, it's good that Spotify is doing something about this. We don't know when the tool will exit the beta phase and become available for all artists on the platform. That day can't come soon enough.