Spotify Unveils New AI Policies to Combat 'Slop' and Protect Artists

Spotify to label AI music, filter spam and more in AI policy change

Spotify on Thursday announced a series of updates to its AI policy, designed to better indicate when AI is being used to make music, to cut down on spam, and to make it clearer that unauthorized voice clones are not permitted on its service. The company says it will adopt an upcoming industry standard for identifying and labeling AI music in credits, known as DDEX, and will soon roll out a new music spam filter to catch more bad actors. Under the DDEX system, labels, distributors, and music partners submit standardized AI disclosures in music credits. This solution offers detailed information about the use of AI -- like whether it was used for AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production, for example. "We know the use of AI is going to be a spectrum, with artists and producers incorporating AI in various parts of their creative workflow," said Sam Duboff, Spotify's Global Head of Marketing and Policy, in a press briefing on Wednesday. "This industry standard will allow for more accurate, nuanced disclosures. It won't force tracks into a false binary where a song either has to be categorically AI or not AI at all," he noted. As part of the same announcement, Spotify clarified its polices around AI-enabled personalization, stating directly thatunauthorized AI voice clones, deepfakes, and any other form of vocal replicas or impersonation are not allowed and will be removed from the platform. While the DDEX standard is developing, Spotify says it's received commitments from 15 labels and distributors who plan to adopt the technology, and sees its move as one that could signal to others it's time to adopt the technology. Because AI tools make it easier for anyone to release music, Spotify also has a new plan to cut down on the potential spam that results. This fall, the company will roll out a new music spam filter that will attempt to address spam tactics, tag them, and then stop recommending those tracks to users. "We know AI has made it easier than ever for bad actors to mass upload content, create duplicates, use SEO tricks to manipulate search or recommendation systems...we've been fighting these kinds of tactics for years," Duboff said. "But AI is accelerating these issues with more sophistication, and we know that requires new types of mitigations." The company said it would roll out the filter gradually to make sure it's targeting the right signals, then add more signals over time as the market evolves. Related to this, Spotify will also work with distributors to address something called "profile mismatches," a scheme where someone fraudulently uploads music to another artist's profile across streaming services. The company said it hopes to prevent more of these before the music ever goes live. Despite the changes, Spotify executives emphasized that they still support use of AI provided it's used in a non-fraudulent way. "We're not here to punish artists for using AI authentically and responsibly. We hope that artists' use of AI production tools will enable them to be more creative than ever," noted Spotify VP and Global Head of Music, Charlie Hellman. "But we are here to stop the bad actors who are gaming the system, and we can only benefit from all that good side of AI if we aggressively protect against the downside," he said. Spotify's updates follow a rapid increase in AI-generated music across the industry. This summer, an AI-generated band called Velvet Sundown went viral on its service, leading users to complain that the company isn't transparent about labeling its AI tracks. Meanwhile, streaming rival Deezer recently shared that about 18% of the music uploaded each day to its service -- or more than 20,000 tracks -- is now fully AI-generated. Spotify wouldn't share its own metrics on the matter directly -- but Duboff told reporters that "the reality is, all streaming services have almost exactly the same catalog." "People tend to deliver the music to all services," he explained, adding that uploading tracks doesn't mean anyone's listening or that the AI music makes money. "We know AI usage is increasingly not a binary, but kind of a spectrum of how artists and producers are using it."

Spotify's New AI Policies Aim to Crack Down on Deepfakes and Misleading Content

Though Kourtnee hasn't won any journalism awards yet, she's been a Netflix streaming subscriber since 2012 and knows the magic of its hidden codes. Spotify is addressing the use of generative AI in music streaming with the rollout of new policies aimed at protecting artists and listeners alike. On Thursday, the company acknowledged AI's pros and cons while announcing plans for a spam filter, disclosure notices and a way to tackle impersonation. "At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it," Spotify said on its website. "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." To help tackle what amounts to digital identity theft, Spotify is implementing an impersonation policy that allows artists to file a claim against anyone who has cloned their voices and uploaded content without permission. Under the policy, the streamer will remove the uploaded content, whether AI was used to create it or a different method. If an artist discovers a song or body of work on the platform using their voice or likeness, they -- or someone on their behalf -- can submit a complaint. This fall, Spotify is also launching a music spam filter to fight against sketchy music uploads involving things like bulk uploads, copies, and abuse of the royalty system. The company said the filter will be "a system that will identify uploaders and tracks engaging in these tactics, tag them, and stop recommending them." To prevent punishing legit uploads, Spotify will cautiously roll it out and monitor it along the way. And what's set to be a major guideline is its new AI disclosures. Spotify is working with DDEX and multiple media companies to show standardized AI information disclosures in music credits on the app. As a listener, you will see song info that tells you whether AI tools were used for "AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production." Though Spotify has embraced AI through features like its AI DJ and playlist creation, the move comes after several incidents of artists being impersonated on music apps. This past July, the streaming service removed a fake AI-generated song that was uploaded to Blaze Foley's profile, a country artist who died in 1989.

Spotify is doing more to address AI 'slop' on its platform

Spotify a set of policy changes surrounding AI-generated music and spam on its streaming platform. The company is helping to develop an industry standard for AI disclosure in music credits, alongside . It will be strengthening its approach to AI-assisted spam, such as unauthorized vocal clones, as well as uploaded music that fraudulently delivers music to another artist's profile. The new disclosures will encourage artists to share what aspect, if any, of their production was created with the assistance of AI. Instead of a song simply being marked as "is AI" or "no AI," artists can specify whether they used AI-generated vocals, instrumentation or post-production. The streamer will also debut a new , making it clearer how the platform deals with AI voice clones. The policy promises to give artists stronger protections against this sort of spam, and clearer recourse should any appear. "...the pace of recent advances in generative AI technology has felt quick and at times unsettling, especially for creatives. At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. 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," Spotify said in its announcement. These aren't the only tactics that bad actors use to divert royalties and deceive listeners. Spotify shared that other types of spam "such as mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop" have become easier to create and deploy as AI tools substantially lower the barrier of entry to creating this type of content. To address these, the streamer is launching a new spam filter this fall that will identify uploads and tracks that engage in these types of spam, tag them on the platform, and stop recommending them to users. Spotify said that over the past 12 months it has already removed more than 75 million "spammy" tracks. Spotify says that this sort of spam can dilute the royalty pool and take attention away from real artists trying to earn a living, even in part on the platform. The company says its goal is to achieve more transparency for listeners and protect artist identity through these new policies. These new policies don't address AI-generated projects like , which remains on the platform despite all its lyrics, vocals, and imagery being entirely AI-generated. Spotify doesn't directly acknowledge the AI band, but says "we support artists' freedom to use AI creatively while actively combating its misuse by content farms and bad actors."

Spotify's new filter aims to keep AI slop out of your playlists

Today, Spotify announced it is rolling out new policies and tools to fight off spammy AI content. This initiative is focusing on three areas of concern: AI slop, impersonation, and disclosure of AI use. According to the company, the goal is to provide "listeners with greater transparency about the music they hear" and to protect artists from spam, impersonation, and deception. In terms of dealing with AI slop, Spotify will be rolling out a new music spam filter. The filter will identify and tag uploaders who try to abuse the system -- like using AI to mass upload songs, using SEO hacks, or creating artificially short tracks -- and they'll stop being recommended. The rollout of this filter is scheduled for this fall, but Spotify adds that the tool will be released "conservatively over the coming months and continue to add new signals to the system as new schemes emerge."

The new battle against 'AI Slop' -- Spotify will now label synthetic music and punish abusers

Spotify, one of the leading music streaming services, is taking aim at the rise of AI in the streaming industry. Announcing a host of new rules and regulations around artificial intelligence in a new blog post, Spotify highlighted the 'unsettling' pace at which AI had advanced. Of course, as a company that has used AI rather liberally, introducing the AI DJ, and utilising AI algorithms in much of its service, Spotify was equally quick to point towards the need for balance. "At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. 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 blog post explained. "That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties to bad actors. The future of the music industry is being written, and we believe that aggressively protecting against the worst parts of Gen AI is essential to enabling its potential for artists and producers." While Spotify claims to have already removed over 75 million 'spammy' tracks from the service in the last year, its main aim is to limit the increase of AI slop further. This will occur through three new AI rulings. The biggest and most important update that has come from this new set of rules, Spotify is announcing the use of DDEX. This is a system for identifying and labelling AI music in credits. With this system, labels, distributors and music partners will submit explanations of how AI was used in music. This means it can be made clear if AI was used to generate vocals or instrumentation, or used in post-production or any other area of the music. This information will be displayed in the app when looking at music. Spotify has partnered with a range of industry partners on the introduction of this feature. One of Spotify's new rules coming into place is its impersonation policy. This clarifies how the company handles claims around AI voice clones. This, in theory, would give artists stronger protections and a clearer method for recourse. Spotify goes on to claim it is ramping up its investment to protect against uploaders fraudulently delivering music to another artist's profile across streaming platforms. Spotify highlighted the rise in people using Spotify to make money through unethical means. The plan is to combat this via a music spam filter, which will identify and track uploaders misusing the service. This includes mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse and other methods of boosting their profile. Spotify states in the blog this feature will be rolled out slowly and conservatively, attempting to avoid bans on the wrong accounts. While Spotify is putting in limits on the use of AI, it is by no means turning its back on AI. The company has been an active user of the technology for a long time now and has supported the use of AI by artists. "While AI is changing how some music is made, our priorities are constant. We're investing in tools to protect artist identity, enhance the platform, and provide listeners with more transparency," the blog states. "We support artists' freedom to use AI creatively while actively combating its misuse by content farms and bad actors. Spotify does not create or own music; this is a platform for licensed music where royalties are paid based on listener engagement, and all music is treated equally, regardless of the tools used to make it." What do you think about Spotify's use of AI? Let us know in the comments box below.

Spotify removes 75m spam tracks in past year as AI increases ability to make fake music

Streamer to crack down on AI-generated spam by introducing filter to identify fraudulent uploads Spotify has revealed it removed 75m spam tracks from its platform over the past year as artificial intelligence tools increase the ability of fraudsters to create fake music. The world's biggest music streaming service announced a crackdown on vexatious tracks after admitting the rise of powerful AI tools had coincided with a significant amount of spam content being tackled by the streamer. AI-generated spam is becoming a problem for streaming platforms and musical artists because every play more than 30 seconds long generates a royalty for the scammer behind it - and denies payment to a legitimate artist. The 75m spam tracks rival the scale of Spotify's actual catalogue, which stands at 100m tracks. Spotify also offers nearly 7m podcasts and 350,000 audiobooks. The company said the spam tracks were identified either before they were uploaded as part of an existing filtering process for new tracks, or taken down after getting on to the platform and being identified as illicit. Spotify said it would start rolling out a music spam filter to identify uploaders, tag them and stop the tracks from being recommended by its algorithm. The company said AI tools had made it easier to generate spam content such as impersonations, ultra-short tracks and mass uploads of artificial music, which range from meditation instrumentals to duplicates of famous artists. "Spam tactics ... have become easier to exploit as AI tools make it easier for anyone to generate large volumes of music," Spotify said. The Stockholm-based company, which has nearly 700 million users, said despite the uptick in harmful uses of AI-made content, it was not having a serious impact on listening habits or payments to artists. Spotify paid $10bn (£7.4bn) in royalties last year, although the level of royalty payments is often a subject of tension between the platform and artists. "Engagement with AI-generated music on our platform is minimal and isn't impacting streams or revenue distribution for human artists in any meaningful way," Spotify said. In 2023 Spotify introduced a rule that individual tracks have to be streamed more than 1,000 times before generating a payment, a change the company says has helped tackle scammers. Spotify is also strengthening rules on vocal deepfakes, which are allowed only when the artist being impersonated has given their permission. It is also cracking down on scammers uploading deepfake tracks to a popular artist's profile page. One of the most notorious musical deepfakes was published in 2023. Heart on My Sleeve, a song featuring AI-made vocals purporting to be Drake and the Weeknd, was pulled from streaming services after Universal Music Group, the record company for both artists, criticised the song for "infringing content created with generative AI". Spotify said it would support a new industry standard for disclosing the use of AI in creating a track, developed by a tech and music-industry backed non-profit called DDEX. Artists' use of the standard on the platform will be voluntary, said Spotify, and they will not be forced to label music as entirely or partly AI created. "This change is about strengthening trust across the platform," said the company. "It's not about punishing artists who use AI responsibly or down ranking tracks for disclosing information about how they were made." The popularity on Spotify of Velvet Sundown, an AI-generated band, had given rise to calls for mandatory tagging of music created by the technology. Spotify has not taken down Velvet Sundown - which says it is a "synthetic music project" on its Spotify profile page - because it does not violate the company's anti-spam policies.

Spotify to introduce AI label and spam filter to stop AI music slop

When AI slop started making the rounds on Spotify -- bands like The Velvet Sundown for instance -- users urged Spotify to do something about it. They wanted a label showing that the music on their Discover Weekly and recommendations was actually created by AI. Some users even went so far as to say they should "boycott Spotify" until a label was made. On Thursday, Spotify said it would start doing just that, saying in a press release that "aggressively protecting against the worst parts of Gen AI is essential to enabling its potential for artists and producers." The platform is integrating a new spam filtering system, AI disclosures, and "improved enforcement of impersonation violations" like deepfakes. Spotify worked with DDEX, or the Digital Data Exchange, which is a standards-setting organization in the music industry, to require a "new industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits." This is because, as Spotify says, many artists responsibly use AI tools while creating music, so adding a simple "AI" or "Not AI" label doesn't actually solve the issue of listeners wanting to know if they're listening to AI music. "This standard gives artists and rights holders a way to clearly indicate where and how AI played a role in the creation of a track -- whether that's AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production," Spotify wrote in its press release. "This change is about strengthening trust across the platform. It's not about punishing artists who use AI responsibly or down-ranking tracks for disclosing information about how they were made." "At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. 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," Spotify's press release read. "That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties to bad actors." The new impersonation policy Spotify released specifically details how it plans to give artists stronger protections against AI voice clones. Spotify plans to attack spam music -- like "mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop" -- by rolling out a new system that "will identify uploaders and tracks engaging in these tactics, tag them, and stop recommending them." They're going to start conservatively so they don't accidentally punish the wrong people, and then add more signals as the system ramps up. "These updates are the latest in a series of changes we're making to support a more trustworthy music ecosystem for artists, for rightsholders, and for listeners. We'll keep them coming as the tech evolves, so stay tuned," Spotify wrote.

Spotify moves to tackle AI abuse with transparency measures

Spotify on Thursday unveiled several measures to encourage artists and publishers to be more transparent about their use of artificial intelligence, as well as to limit certain abuses. The Swedish platform is recommending that musicians and producers comply with a new standard developed by the Digital Data Exchange (DDEX), a consortium of leading media companies, music licensing organizations, digital service providers and technology firms that develops standards for the creative industries. Since the beginning of the year, DDEX has allowed tracks to be labeled as entirely, partially, or not at all created with AI in their descriptions. Once these metadata are integrated, they'll be available "across Spotify," promised Sam Duboff, head of music marketing at the streaming platform. The issue gained prominence in June when an AI group called The Velvet Sundown suddenly went viral, with their most popular song surpassing three million streams on Spotify. The new labeling system operates on a voluntary basis, and Spotify does not require content uploaders to disclose AI's role in their production. "Initially, I think people's mindset was very much binary," explained Charlie Hellman, head of music at Spotify, during a presentation. "There's either AI music or there's not. But the reality is that we're now seeing this proliferation of so many different ways that AI is incorporated into all different steps of the tool chain." Spotify does not want to "punish artists for using AI authentically and responsibly," Hellman said. According to the company, more than 15 labels and distributors have already committed to comply with the DDEX nomenclature. Deezer is currently the only major audio platform to systematically flag tracks entirely generated by artificial intelligence. Regarding such tracks identified by Spotify as entirely created through generative AI, "their audience is minimal," Duboff said. "It's really a small percentage of streams. In general, when the music doesn't take much effort to create, it tends to be low quality and doesn't find an audience." The platform also announced Thursday that it had updated its rules to make clear that unauthorized AI use, including the creation of deepfakes or imitations without consent, is not permitted and such content would be removed.

Spotify embraces creative AI while cracking down on fraud

Spotify Technology SA is embracing artificial intelligence tools for creating content, but cracking down on fraudulent impersonation and spamming. The Swedish streaming giant is introducing new policies and increasing investments to protect artists and listeners against AI generated "slop" that floods the platform, degrading the listening experience and diverting artist royalty payments to bad actors. Spotify said it has strengthened protections for artists and is giving clearer recourse for claims of unauthorized vocal impersonation, or deepfakes that use AI to create a replica of an artist's voice. The company is also rolling out a new spam-identification system that will proactively flag and stop recommending tracks that appear to game the royalty payment system. Spotify has battled for years against bogus tracks that siphon off billions of dollars to rightsholders. But the arrival of generative AI startups like Suno and Udio has increased the stakes with software that can mimic an artist's voice, create new tracks that sound real and turn up in playlists. In the past 12 months alone, Spotify removed more than 75 million "spammy tracks" from the platform, the company said. Last year, the US Justice Department charged a North Carolina man with music streaming fraud after he allegedly created hundreds of thousands of songs with the help of AI and used automated bots to drive streams to those songs, reaping $10 million from his efforts. "AI has accelerated our urgency and changed some of the tactics we need to use," said Charlie Hellman, Spotify's global head of music vertical. "But our principles and our priorities around this area really haven't changed. Protecting artists and their identities, keeping the platform experience clean and high quality and helping listeners have a better transparent experience into the music that they love, so they know what they're getting." AI is a highly sensitive topic in the music industry and figuring out how to cope with the technology is a rare point of agreement among artists and record companies. Major labels have sued Suno and Udio over copyright infringement, yet the market continues to be flooded with AI-generated music. This summer, Spotify's algorithm began promoting the music of a new group known as Velvet Sundown, a mysterious artist that appeared to be AI-generated and garnered a significant number of streams. Spotify was criticized for promoting the group and for not labeling it as AI-generated. The group's Spotify biography has been updated to say it's created in part by AI. Despite growing concerns, Spotify won't ban outright or discourage AI-generated music, except for tracks that don't comply with its spam or fraud policies. The company is, however, encouraging its partners to disclose how and when they implement AI, but the policy is opt-in, not required, leaving little incentive for labels and artists to share when they've used the technology. Spotify plans to support a new industry standard, developed through DDEX, a digital standards organization, that will introduce a disclosure for AI content across music platforms. Some partners have already committed to this standard, including distributors CD Baby and DistroKid, as well as independent labels Believe, Empire, and Downtown Artist & Label Services. A Spotify spokesperson said the platform is in talks with the major labels who are "broadly supportive." Hellman said artists use AI in various capacities that aren't nefarious -- ChatGPT might write the lyrics while a human plays the instrument or vice versa -- and the line of what counts as an AI-generated song is still blurry. Spotify won't penalize people who use it as a legitimate tool. Sam DuBoff, global head of marketing & policy for Spotify for Artists, said the company hasn't seen songs that are wholly AI-generated take off. "In general, when the music doesn't take much effort to create, it tends to be of low quality, it doesn't tend to find an audience," he said.

Spotify Embraces AI Music With New Policies, While Combating 'Spam' and 'Slop'

Under new rules Spotify announced today, an AI "band" like the now-infamous Velvet Sundown will still be allowed on the service, but would be encouraged to label itself properly from the start. Overall, Spotify has zero intention of eliminating AI-generated music from its service, execs said Tuesday, in a press conference announcing its new guidelines. At the same time, the company said it's waging war against a flood of low-quality AI content, removing more than 75 million "spammy" tracks in the past 12 months alone. There's no question that in the wake of the rise of services such as Suno -- which allow near-instant generation of new songs -- AI-generated music is deluging streaming services. Spotify competitor Deezer has said that approximately 28 percent of daily uploads are fully AI-generated music, though those tracks account for a mere 0.5 percent of actual streams. But even as Spotify aims to curb the impact of that onslaught, they're signaling that AI music is here to stay. "We're not here to punish artists for using AI authentically and responsibly," said Charlie Hellman, Spotify's VP global head of music product. "We hope that artists' use of AI production tools will enable them to be more creative than ever." Spotify is most concerned about "mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop," according to a blog post from the company. Accordingly, it's rolling out a new spam filter to flag uploaders engaging in those practices, and thus "help prevent spammers from generating royalties that could be otherwise distributed to professional artists and songwriters." The company will stop short of removing those tracks, though, instead simply making them ineligible for recommendation by the streamer's algorithm. The company will still have no rules in place against boosting AI-generated songs in general. The platform will encourage, but apparently not mandate, that artists label their AI usage via a new industry standard developed through DDEX -- a long-standing non-profit that creates technical standards for song metadata across platforms. The idea is that artists will specify their precise uses of generative AI, ranging from fully prompt-generated songs to human-made songs with AI-tweaked lyrics. The approach treats AI use as "a spectrum, not a binary," said Sam Duboff, Spotify's global head of marketing and policy, music business. The new policies also include more explicit bans on unauthorized AI voice clones and deepfakes. "Some artists may choose to license their voice to AI projects -- and that's their choice to make," Duboff said. "Our job is to do what we can to ensure that the choice stays in their hands." At the same time, the company says it's aiming to be more vigilant about "profile mismatches," where fraudsters upload content under the name of real artists, often famous ones. This summer, the Velvet Sundown, a fake AI-generated band that initially didn't acknowledge its nature, amassed over a million monthly listeners, while appearing to benefit from algorithmic promotion on Spotify. The band eventually admitted in an updated bio that it was "a synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence." Duboff suggested the "band" might have gained much less notoriety if it was properly labeled from the start. "I think the kind of news cycle, the fan interest, would've been really different," he said.

Spotify moves to tackle AI abuse with transparency measures - The Economic Times

Spotify on Thursday unveiled several measures to encourage artists and publishers to be more transparent about their use of artificial intelligence, as well as to limit certain abuses. The Swedish platform is recommending that musicians and producers comply with a new standard developed by the Digital Data Exchange (DDEX), a consortium of leading media companies, music licensing organisations, digital service providers and technology firms that develops standards for the creative industries. Since the beginning of the year, DDEX has allowed tracks to be labeled as entirely, partially, or not at all created with AI in their descriptions. Once these metadata are integrated, they'll be available "across Spotify," promised Sam Duboff, head of music marketing at the streaming platform. The issue gained prominence in June when an AI group called The Velvet Sundown suddenly went viral, with their most popular song surpassing three million streams on Spotify. The new labeling system operates on a voluntary basis, and Spotify does not require content uploaders to disclose AI's role in their production. "Initially, I think people's mindset was very much binary," explained Charlie Hellman, head of music at Spotify, during a presentation. "There's either AI music or there's not. But the reality is that we're now seeing this proliferation of so many different ways that AI is incorporated into all different steps of the tool chain." Spotify does not want to "punish artists for using AI authentically and responsibly," Hellman said. According to the company, more than 15 labels and distributors have already committed to comply with the DDEX nomenclature. Deezer is currently the only major audio platform to systematically flag tracks entirely generated by artificial intelligence. Regarding such tracks identified by Spotify as entirely created through generative AI, "their audience is minimal," Duboff said. "It's really a small percentage of streams. In general, when the music doesn't take much effort to create, it tends to be low quality and doesn't find an audience." The platform also announced Thursday that it had updated its rules to make clear that unauthorized AI use, including the creation of deepfakes or imitations without consent, is not permitted and such content would be removed.

Spotify Removes 75 Million "Spammy" Songs, Cracks Down On AI Use by "Bad Actors"

Oscars: Australia Picks 'The Wolves Always Come at Night' as International Feature Submission Spotify is set to strengthen AI protections for artists and music producers with a series of measures, including improved enforcement of impersonation violations, a new spam filtering system and AI disclosures for music with industry-standard credits. The music streaming giant made the announcement in a "For the Record" post on its website on Thursday, noting that it had removed 75 million "spammy" tracks. "The pace of recent advances in generative AI technology has felt quick and at times unsettling, especially for creatives," the post begins. "At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. 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. That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties to bad actors." Spotify adds, "The future of the music industry is being written, and we believe that aggressively protecting against the worst parts of Gen AI is essential to enabling its potential for artists and producers. We envision a future where artists and producers are in control of how or if they incorporate AI into their creative processes. As always, we leave those creative decisions to artists themselves, while continuing our work to protect them against spam, impersonation, and deception, and providing listeners with greater transparency about the music they hear." Regarding specifics, on the issue of impersonation, Spotify has committed itself to stronger rules and better enforcement. "We've introduced a new impersonation policy that clarifies how we handle claims about AI voice clones (and other forms of unauthorized vocal impersonation), giving artists stronger protections and clearer recourse," the company says. "Vocal impersonation is only allowed in music on Spotify when the impersonated artist has authorized the usage." Additionally, Spotify said it was ramping up "investments to protect against another impersonation tactic -- where uploaders fraudulently deliver music (AI-generated or otherwise) to another artist's profile across streaming services." Additionally, the company said it was "testing new prevention tactics with leading artist distributors to equip them to better stop these attacks at the source." Spotify hopes its new spam filtering measures will cut down on issues such as "mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop" that have all become easier and more prevalent due to AI tools. The new spam filter "will identify uploaders and tracks engaging in these tactics, tag them, and stop recommending them." The company says it will roll out a new music spam filter over the coming months and will be careful not to penalize the wrong uploaders. The third measure Spotify has introduced is AI disclosures for music with industry-standard credits. With AI increasingly being used in the music industry, the company wants to increase transparency of its use. "We know the use of AI tools is increasingly a spectrum, not a binary, where artists and producers may choose to use AI to help with some parts of their productions and not others. The industry needs a nuanced approach to AI transparency, not forced to classify every song as either "is AI" or "not AI"," says Spotify. Spotify says it will help develop and support new industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits that are being developed through the Digital Data Exchange, the international standards-setting organization. This AI disclosure information will be displayed across the Spotify app. Spotify's new AI crackdown comes despite the company embracing AI in other aspects of its business. In February, Spotify said it will accept more AI-narrated audiobooks on its platform through a partnership with ElevenLabs. Still, the new AI measures will be welcomed by the major labels and fans after a number of recent news reports of undeclared AI artists racking up thousands of streams on Spotify. In July, The Guardian reported that the band The Velvet Sundown released two albums and accrued over one million streams on Spotfiy before it was revealed the band and its music was AI generated. "We welcome Spotify's new AI protections as important steps forward consistent with our longstanding Artist Centric principles," a Univeral Music Group spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter. "We believe AI presents enormous opportunities for both artists and fans, which is why platforms, distributors and aggregators must adopt measures to protect the health of the music ecosystem in order for these opportunities to flourish. These measures include content filtering; checks for infringement across streaming and social platforms; penalty systems for repeat infringers; chain-of-custody certification and name-and-likeness verification. The adoption of these measures would enable artists to reach more fans, have more economic and creative opportunities, and dramatically diminish the sea of noise and irrelevant content that threatens to drown out artists' voices."