In a bid to stem the spread of computer-generated music on its platform, Spotify has removed seven percent of songs published by AI music company Boomy. Spotify’s switch comes after Universal Music alerted the Swedish music giant that suspicious activity surrounding Boomy’s content had picked up steam, particularly in terms of listenership. Meanwhile, the sudden boom in AI-generated content flooding the internet has worried several industries, including the music industry.
Universal Music recently reached out to Spotify, suggesting that bots could have been used to get more listeners for Boomy’s songs — which could deceptively make huge bucks for uploaders of that content.
Such activities are known as “streaming manipulation,” resulting in illegitimate royalty collection while creating an undesirable state of hyper-competition. “Artificial streaming is a long-standing, industry-wide problem that Spotify is working to eliminate across our service,” said a report by Financial Times.
The decision to remove Boomy’s content was intended to mitigate the impact of Spotify’s streaming manipulation.
The music streaming giant is also cracking down on bot activity and streaming tricks by deleting stream counts and blocking royalties from being paid.
Michael Nash, Universal Music’s chief digital officer, also confirmed the development to the Financial Times.
In a statement, Nash pointed out that the music label, founded in 1934, strongly encourages the vigilance of media platforms, which are kept clean and well monitored.
Boomy has not yet responded to Spotify’s deletion of thousands of his songs. At the time of writing, Spotify has 2,442 listeners to Boomy’s songs.
However, the increasing use of artificial intelligence to generate content has caused waves of concern among writers and artists around the world.
A Bloomberg report recently addressed the situation, saying, “Music’s disruptive future risks being very much like its past: loud and uneven.” Record labels aren’t entirely wrong in requiring streaming platforms to do so clean them up in favor of more “Huma” music. But this is also a good time to start thinking about fairer ways to distribute the streaming loot and create new human artists. What hope is there for the rest of us when whales become an endangered species?”
