Field Dispatch
Bridgit Mendler deepfake on Spotify | Matt Connnarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: Right now, though, you know, we were talking about this earlier.
Speaker 1: A little more music industry news for you. This is
Speaker 1: from Digital Musicnews dot Com again one of my favorite
Speaker 1: websites for music industry news, and this relates to something
Speaker 1: that we were talking on the show about very recently,
Speaker 1: you know, because in the AI era and as we
Speaker 1: watch how AI is affecting the music industry or infecting
Speaker 1: the music industry depending on your point of view, there's
Speaker 1: and again we were even talking about this well. We
Speaker 1: touched on on this a little bit with UH with
Speaker 1: Mick from Corners of Sanctuary in the first hour. But
Speaker 1: AI is really causing a lot of One of the
Speaker 1: things that people are concerned with with AI, it's not
Speaker 1: just that you're able to easily generate really professional, well
Speaker 1: produced music with just a few prompts, like with apps
Speaker 1: like Suno and whatnot. So obviously people are concerned about
Speaker 1: musicians being replaced by AI. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: people are worried about their jobs losing their jobs to
Speaker 1: AI in various ways as we see the acceleration of
Speaker 1: automation and all of these things. But you wouldn't necessarily
Speaker 1: if it's not something that if the music industry isn't
Speaker 1: something you're actively thinking about. And I know we have
Speaker 1: a lot of listeners of this show who are involved
Speaker 1: in the music industry. But if you're outside of it
Speaker 1: and you're not necessarily thinking about it, you wouldn't particularly
Speaker 1: be worried about musicians necessarily having their jobs replaced by AI.
Speaker 1: But if you are a musician or you're in the
Speaker 1: music industry in any capacity, you are thinking about this.
Speaker 1: But there's also an increased potential for fraud for people
Speaker 1: pretending to be who they're not, impersonating celebrities. We talked
Speaker 1: about that recently on the show. On TikTok Ai impersonations
Speaker 1: of Taylor Swift, for example, selling memberships to some service
Speaker 1: on TikTok and then you wonder, well, if you're a
Speaker 1: discerning person using logic and reason, you might wonder, why
Speaker 1: would Taylor Swift, who has all the money in the
Speaker 1: world and is so hugely successful, a global icon, why
Speaker 1: is she on TikTok selling memberships? Because it's not really
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, it's AI generated, but it's it wants you
Speaker 1: to think it's Taylor Swift. It's fraud. So Spotify. We
Speaker 1: talked about this on the show Spotify has They've got
Speaker 1: this new artist profile protection thing where if you're an
Speaker 1: artist on Spotify, if you have music on Spotify, you
Speaker 1: can become verified. It's similar to what other social media
Speaker 1: platforms have done, like you know X formerly Twitter you
Speaker 1: can be verified. You can do something like that on
Speaker 1: Facebook now too. For your business you can be verified.
Speaker 1: I don't know if Facebook calls it verified or if
Speaker 1: they call it something else. I can't remember, but it
Speaker 1: costs money, so I haven't done it. But now they
Speaker 1: have it for artists, so you can be a verified artist.
Speaker 1: And what this is supposed to prevent in theory is somebody, say,
Speaker 1: somebody wants to pretend that they're Tailor's Swift and they
Speaker 1: create some music, presumably during using AI. Some AI gener
Speaker 1: rated tracks that sound like Taylor Swift, and then they
Speaker 1: upload them to Spotify and they call themselves Taylor Swift,
Speaker 1: but they're not really Taylor Swift. It's supposed to help
Speaker 1: to prevent that. But is it working? And this question
Speaker 1: this article asks that question from Digital Musicnews dot com.
Speaker 1: Is Spotify's Artist profile protection actually working? Fans confused after
Speaker 1: Bridget Mendler's new EP appears so let's see what's going
Speaker 1: on here, It says Bridget Mendler says a surprise EP
Speaker 1: attributed to her on Spotify and Apple Music is not her,
Speaker 1: raising questions about streaming platforms efforts to curb AI impersonators.
Speaker 1: Last week, fans of former Disney Channel star Bridget Mendler
Speaker 1: were thrilled to see she had released a new EP
Speaker 1: titled Once Again on Spotify and Apple Music, but Mendler
Speaker 1: confirmed on social media that the release wasn't her, raising
Speaker 1: concerns about streamer's efforts to prevent AI impersonation. Sorry to
Speaker 1: disappoint everyone, the Spotify release wasn't me, wrote Mendler on
Speaker 1: the former Twitter on Wednesday. When it is trust me,
Speaker 1: you'll know, oh boy. Spotify confirmed that the fakep had
Speaker 1: been removed from the platform. Here's what Spotify spokesperson had
Speaker 1: to say about this quote. Protecting artist's identities is a
Speaker 1: top priority for us, and we continue to invest heavily
Speaker 1: in detection and prevention. Spotify is the only streaming service
Speaker 1: to offer artist profile protection, currently available in beta, which
Speaker 1: lets artists opt in to review and approve or decline
Speaker 1: incoming releases before they go live on their profile. Unquote
Speaker 1: which seems like a pretty simple system. Actually, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff is complicated, and I always
Speaker 1: worry about people getting caught in the net. For example,
Speaker 1: when we talk about software that can detect AI and
Speaker 1: then either block that track or that content or label
Speaker 1: it as AI and so it's not monetizable on YouTube
Speaker 1: for example, things like that, I always worry about people
Speaker 1: getting caught in the net, people who are actually making
Speaker 1: quote unquote legitimate content or legitimate music, but they get
Speaker 1: tagged as AI when in fact, for example, if you're
Speaker 1: making music, you know, any modern recording studio has programs,
Speaker 1: has software in it that they're working with that uses
Speaker 1: AI in some way, so you know there's there's going
Speaker 1: to be error there. This system seems like it would
Speaker 1: be pretty foolproof, though. If you are a verified artist
Speaker 1: on Spotify, if someone uploads something with your name on it,
Speaker 1: you're going to get an email. I presume this is
Speaker 1: how it works from Spotify saying hey is this you
Speaker 1: do you approve this, and then you either approve it
Speaker 1: or you deny it, and if you deny it, it
Speaker 1: doesn't go up. That seems like a really simple system,
Speaker 1: but it is in beta and apparently there are already
Speaker 1: problems with it because it did not work for Bridget Mendler. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let me just read that part again. But this
Speaker 1: is from the uh. This is what the spokesperson said.
Speaker 1: The system lets the artists opt in to review and
Speaker 1: approve or decline incoming releases before they go live on
Speaker 1: their profile. So it says here that implies that Mendler
Speaker 1: had not opted in to Spotify's artist profile protection, making
Speaker 1: her an easy target for impersonation. Okay, so she didn't
Speaker 1: opt in. The former Wizards of Waverley Place star hasn't
Speaker 1: released new music since her four track EP Nemesis in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, followed by a single Driving in twenty seventeen. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she hasn't been active. I assume she's doing more acting.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know. I don't know anything about her,
Speaker 1: but she hasn't been active in terms of releasing music
Speaker 1: in almost a decade. So it makes sense. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is a relatively new thing, this artist profile verification,
Speaker 1: so I can see how she would have fallen through
Speaker 1: the cracks here. So it says here, in fact, Mendler
Speaker 1: stepped away from the entertainment industry. Oh, she's not even acting.
Speaker 1: She stepped away from the entertainment industry to focus on
Speaker 1: her college education and pursue a career in tech. Oh. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now she's the co founder and CEO of Northwood Space
Speaker 1: and Aerospace communications startup launched in twenty twenty three. Okay,
Speaker 1: so she's out of the game completely. Given Mendler's pivot
Speaker 1: away from music, it seems she was ripe for Ai impersonation.
Speaker 1: Since she had presumably not opted into Spotify's beta service
Speaker 1: to protect her profile, and was not focused on releasing
Speaker 1: new music, her presence was easier to mimic than someone
Speaker 1: actively involved and with a massive following like Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: or Ariana Grande Weather. Spotify's efforts to protect artists with
Speaker 1: artist profile protection will ultimately make a difference in curbing
Speaker 1: bad actor remains to be seen. Since currently artists must
Speaker 1: opt into the service once the feature enjoys a wider rollout,
Speaker 1: and artists are not required to opt in such functionality
Speaker 1: could make a massive difference. Hopefully, Spotify has plans to
Speaker 1: expand the release so that artists like Mendler who aren't
Speaker 1: actively engaging with their streaming presence can rest easy knowing
Speaker 1: they won't be the target of AI deep fakes. Okay,
Speaker 1: I but I have a question. Why can't you, like,
Speaker 1: why does it have to be something you have to
Speaker 1: opt in for? It just seems to me, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: not be the easiest thing in the world to just
Speaker 1: make it so that whoever the artist profile is registered to,
Speaker 1: they get an I mean, jeez, we all have two
Speaker 1: step verification now just to log in to our email
Speaker 1: or whatever, right or to social media, Like, there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff now to verify things when you're logging
Speaker 1: into things. Why can't there be something And maybe if
Speaker 1: they opt into the artist's profile protection, maybe there's even
Speaker 1: an additional step. But why can't there be something basic
Speaker 1: where if it's your account, if it's your name, and
Speaker 1: someone is uploading something with your name on it, you
Speaker 1: automatically get an email saying hey, just making sure this
Speaker 1: is you and that you approve of this. Why does
Speaker 1: it have to be something you have to opt into?
Speaker 1: Because again, this is a problem. And you know, I
Speaker 1: thought this sounded like a great idea the first time
Speaker 1: we talked about it on the show, But yeah, there
Speaker 1: is a great giant, gaping hole in this whole thing. Right,
Speaker 1: If you're not someone who's actively making new music and
Speaker 1: you're not paying attention to what's going on on Spotify
Speaker 1: because you're you don't have anything new to put there,
Speaker 1: then yeah, then you're ripe for this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: She hasn't put out new music since twenty seventeen, so
Speaker 1: they're gonna have to figure it out and listen again,
Speaker 1: this is in beta, and hopefully they will figure it out.
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