Spotify Tightens AI Policies, Says 75 Million ‘Spammy’ Tracks Removed in Last Year

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Spotify has updated its policies to fortify protections against what it calls the “worst” usage cases of AI-generated euphony connected the platform. The announcement comes aft months of disapproval of the streaming service, owed to its deficiency of policies specifically targeting AI euphony and the increasing prevalence of AI artists connected the site, including viral AI enactment The Velvet Sundown.

This doesn’t mean the streaming work is taking a hardline stance against each AI music. As Spotify’s Head of Music, Charlie Hellman, said successful a property briefing: “I privation to beryllium wide astir 1 thing. We’re not present to punish artists for utilizing AI authentically and responsibly. We anticipation that artists’ usage of AI accumulation tools volition alteration them to beryllium much originative than ever, make much contented that excites fans and connection the champion imaginable acquisition connected Spotify. But we are present to halt the atrocious actors who are gaming the system, and we tin lone payment from [the] bully broadside of AI if we aggressively support against the downside.”

Already, Spotify revealed it has been softly trying to mitigate the “downside” of AI. In the past year, Spotify stated it had already removed implicit “75 cardinal spammy tracks” from the site, which violated Spotify guidelines. Some, but not all, of these tracks are believed to beryllium AI-generated.

Spotify’s announcement connected Thursday (Sept. 25) is mostly an update to its pre-existing rules. Already, the institution has targeted antagonistic uses of AI euphony by cracking down connected impersonation, artificial streaming and spam content. Those are inactive the superior ways that the work is policing what it calls “the worst parts of Gen AI,” but present those rules transportation caller strength. Below is simply a breakdown of Spotify’s 3 caller updates:

Music Spam Filter

Its euphony spam filter has been updated truthful that erstwhile a idiosyncratic is flagged for utilizing communal hacks similar wide uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially abbreviated tracks and “other forms of slop,” arsenic the company’s property merchandise enactment it, the tracks and their uploaders volition beryllium flagged and the contented volition nary longer beryllium recommended to users. A institution spokesperson says this caller filter volition beryllium rolled retired dilatory and with caution “to guarantee we’re not penalizing the incorrect uploaders.”

Just arsenic before, this filter is not circumstantial to AI-generated songs — it targets each forms of spam, whether human-made oregon AI-generated — but fixed AI models are capable to rapidly make caller songs successful seconds, AI is often utilized arsenic a mode of perpetuating wide uploads connected streaming platforms. To experts, spam is seen arsenic detrimental due to the fact that it is often utilized to dispersed retired fraudulent oregon artificial streaming enactment implicit a ample fig of tracks with the extremity of siphoning wealth distant from the royalty pools intended for existent artists.

One illustration of this strategy came to airy past September, erstwhile national prosecutors indicted a North Carolina musician for allegedly utilizing AI to make “hundreds of thousands” of songs and past utilizing the AI tracks to gain much than $10 cardinal successful fraudulent streaming royalties.

Stronger Impersonation Rules

The institution has ever had a argumentation barring deceptive contented and deepfakes, but present Spotify’s caller impersonation argumentation has been updated to clarify however it handles claims astir AI dependable clones (and different forms of unauthorized vocal impersonation).

Spotify is besides addressing its “content mismatch” occupation with caller protections. Content mismatch occurs erstwhile an unauthorized idiosyncratic uploads a opus to a antithetic artist’s Spotify leafage without support successful the hopes that it boosts streams for the song. In caller months, the contented has been brought to wider attraction by Paul Bender of the set Haitus Kaiyote, who experienced contented mismatch with his broadside task The Sweet Enoughs and took to societal media to telephone retired Spotify for it.

Now, Spotify announced that it volition beryllium “investing much resources” into the contented “reducing the hold clip for review, and enabling artists to study ‘mismatch’ adjacent successful the pre-release state.”