Spotify vs. AI | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: We have some music news. This is interesting.

0:02 Speaker 2: So we've talked about Spotify before. This is interesting to me for a couple of reasons, but you had sent me this. This is from the Hollywood Reporter. Spotify removes seventy five million spammy in quotes, spammy songs, cracks down on AI use by bad actors. The music streaming giant is looking to modernize, I'm sorry, moderate rather AI generated music as it floods its platform. I can see how that would be a problem. By the way, before we get into the story in a little bit of depth. Here again, this is from the Hollywood Reporter.

0:37 Speaker 2: This just went up two days ago, so this is pretty fresh. But not only not only is this obviously, I mean, I can see why this would be a problem, right. AI makes it so easy, like the Puno app, for example, we've used it on the show. You can create music, you know, music that sounds like it was created by real people, really realistic music.

0:56 Speaker 3: Because they're sailing it from real people, but not realistically.

0:59 Speaker 1: But not only that, so obviously this would be a problem.

1:01 Speaker 2: Right. If it's that easy to create it, it's easy to you know, submit it to Spotify or any other streaming platform, right, and then and then they will use it. But the other thing that's interesting to me, and this came up a few years ago Spotify because we had talked about this on the show. This was yeah, this was at least two or three years ago. I think there was a story about how Spotify was having to go through and remove a lot of lower quality, you know, low quality in terms of production value, like stuff that sounded like demos, for example, not actually fully produced mixed and mastered music because people were uploading so much music to Spotify and a lot of it wasn't even necessarily you know, just just the quality like anything that you hear on Spotify should it should at minimum be the same quality that you might hear on the radio or that you might buy in a store, right, right.

1:53 Speaker 2: So that was becoming a problem. So Spotify was having to go through and remove a lot of that. And what was interesting about that is, you know, people don't necessarily realize these streaming services. It's not like, think of how much music gets uploaded to these streaming services every day across the world. But it's not as though they have unlimited storage. True, you know, there there is I mean, you know, they can always make more right. But it's not as simple as like just you can just upload millions and millions of songs all at once and it's just fine.

2:28 Speaker 2: It's not so they have to as there. And look, I'm not please. I'm not expressing any sympathy for Spotify because I you know, artists can plain often and I'll always advocate on the side of artists that Spotify pays out painfully low amounts of you know, for the music that you know, pays low amounts of these artists for making their music available to stream. But it's it's but but these are problems, you know, it's not a perfect business model in the sense that there are pro problems with you know, in terms of storage and and now they're having to go through and deal with the onslaught of AI and release all these and remove rather all these spammy songs that are produced produced by AI and and not only that, but there's also going to be the effect of some people and I remember we talked about this on the show once before.

3:22 Speaker 2: Some people are going to get caught in that net inevitably because of technology I'm sure is not perfect. Some people are going to get caught in that net who are not in fact, uh, you know these AI artists like what was her name, Zani m One we talked about last week or signed So you can't take that or that or that band. Uh.

3:42 Speaker 1: I forget the name of the band now, but we played something.

3:44 Speaker 3: Of theirs Interfury.

3:46 Speaker 2: No Interfury is the one that you found or that guy found you. But there was another band we talked about on the show who uh is charting?

3:53 Speaker 1: Who?

3:53 Speaker 2: People thought? Well people people figured out they're not a real band. But anyway, I forget who the who it is now, but all their songs are like about war, like very pro war but very strange.

4:05 Speaker 1: But yeah, so these are problems.

4:07 Speaker 2: But there's going to be some artists who the software or whatever they're doing, however they're applying this because you can't have a human being sitting there doing all this, right, that software is going to detect artists who aren't necessarily AI generated, but maybe have AI elements in their you know AI. I mean you use AI in a recording studio anyway, you can't avoid it, right, But let's look at this, so it says here again, this is from the Hollywood Reporter. 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 and industry standard credits.

4:48 Speaker 2: The music streaming Giant made the announcement in a for the record post on its website Thursday, noting that it had removed seventy five million spamy tracks began quote the pace of recent advances in generative 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 great music and for listeners to discover it. At its worst, AI can be used by bad actors and consent farm and content farms to confuse or deceive listeners, push slop into the ecosystem, and interfere with authentic artists working to build their careers.

5:33 Speaker 2: That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties.

5:40 Speaker 1: To bad actors.

5:42 Speaker 2: UH the future again, this is from the statement the future of music industry. Of the music industry is being written, and we believe the aggressive 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 unquote.

6:24 Speaker 2: Regarding specifics on the issue of impersonation, Spotify has committed itself to stronger rules and better enforcement.

6:31 Speaker 1: Quote.

6:32 Speaker 2: 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. Vocal impersonation is only allowed in music on Spotify when the impersonated artist has authorized its usage.

6:55 Speaker 1: Unquote.

6:56 Speaker 2: By the way, that is, there's more to this article, but that's one of the points where you know, I talked about people getting caught in the net again, I'm not I'm not criticizing Spotify for doing this. I think this is probably a really good thing, but it's not going to be perfect. What if you have an artist who just sounds like they just have a voice similar to another artist. You know, a lot of artists sound similar.

7:21 Speaker 3: And but there's I bet there's things computers can pick up that's different about the may sound similar to the human ear.

7:27 Speaker 1: But maybe this is.

7:28 Speaker 2: Maybe maybe maybe, But but what if I just I can I can see there're being mistakes here. It's not going to be perfect. And what if an artist here's someone who they think sounds like them and they make a complaint, they make a claim, and then it turns out that the artist who sounds like them is a real person with a real voice who happens to sound like them. So there's going to be problems with this. I mean, ask anybody who's dealt with YouTube, you know, getting getting all kinds of you know, the stuff YouTube will put you through if you're a content creator.

8:08 Speaker 2: And we won't get in all of that that because that's a whole other conversation, but it's related in the sense that, you know, sometimes people get caught in a net and it's it's it's not a good uh, I not a good thing to have happened to you.

8:24 Speaker 3: So it's it's going to be kind of a difficult thing to navigate.

8:29 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it says here.

8:32 Speaker 2: Additionally, Spotify said it was ramping up quote investments to protect against another impersonation tactic where uploaders fraudulently deliver music AI generated or otherwise to another artist profile across streaming services. Uh, testing new prevention tactics with leading artists distributors to equip them to better stop these attacks. As at the source unquote. Yeah, so if you if you make a song that sounds like Taylor Swift and then you try to upload it as Taylor Swift's.

9:09 Speaker 1: Say, this is a new Taylor Swift.

9:11 Speaker 3: Remember, Yeah, people do slimy stuff like that.

9:14 Speaker 2: Oh remember we talked about it on the show Selene Deon where there was this AI generated Celene Dion song that fooled a lot of people and it was being Uh it was pretty successful and I think it even charted on some charts somewhere.

9:28 Speaker 1: I don't know, but it was.

9:29 Speaker 2: It was on YouTube and people thought it was really her and it wasn't horrible. U. Yeah, but uh, but but there's also so sometimes if artists have similar names, I don't remember who it was. It was somebody we had on the show who they They had tried to upload their music to Spotify, but their name was somewhat similar to someone else's name. It wasn't the same name, but it was somewhat similar, and it and it kept it. Yeah, it was causing all kinds of problems. I don't remember the details, but it also says here again.

10:07 Speaker 2: This is from the Hollywood Reporter. Spotify hopes its new spam filtering measures will cut down on issues such as mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially 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 quote will identify uploaders and tracks engaging in these tactics, tag them, and stop recommending them unquote. 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.

10:50 Speaker 2: The third measure, Oh yeah, yeah, it won't be perfect. The third measure Spotify has introduced is AI disclosure for music with industry standard credits.

11:03 Speaker 1: This is going to be messy with.

11:05 Speaker 2: AI increasingly being used in the music industry. The company wants to increase transparency of its use. Quote, 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. That's that's going to get very, very messy. That's going to be I want to know. That's going to be hard though.

11:43 Speaker 3: But when you have breck now we have record label signing AI artists, well, yeah, how does that work?

11:49 Speaker 1: Well, that's but that's not messy. That's obvious.

11:51 Speaker 2: So it's easy to be transparent about that. But if you're especially if you're creating any type of electronic music in the studio or or at home on your on your laptop, you know, and then how is this that's going to be tricky.

12:06 Speaker 1: I don't know how this is going to work.

12:08 Speaker 2: 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 Standard Setting Organization the AI disclosure information will be displayed.

12:21 Speaker 1: Across the Spotify app.

12:25 Speaker 2: Spotify's new AI crackdown comes despite the company embracing AI and other aspects of its business. In February, Spotify said it will accept more AI narrated audio books on its platform through a partnership with eleven Labs. 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, Oh, this is the band I was trying to think of. I couldn't remember the name.

12:57 Speaker 2: In July, The Guardian reported the band The Velvet sun Down released two albums and accrued over one million streams on Spotify before it was revealed that the band and its music were AI generated. A Universal Music Group spokesperson told the harl Of Hollywood reporter quote, we welcome Spotify's new AI protections as important steps toward toward consistent forward. I'm sorry, steps forward consistent with our longstanding artist centric principles. 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.

13:44 Speaker 2: These measures include content filtering, checks for infringement across streaming and social platforms, penalty systems for repeat infringers, chain of custodies, custody certification, and name and likeness verification. The adoption of these measures would inable artists to reach more fans, have more economic creative opportunities, and dramatically diminish the sea of noise and irrelevant content that threatens to drown out artists' voices unquote. All right, So that is that's what's going on at Spotify.

14:18 Speaker 2: And again Spotify is nobody's favorite company again because of the way they pay or don't pay artists. But but I think this is a good thing that they're doing.

14:29 Speaker 1: But we'll see there's going to be some pitfalls with it.