Spotify's new verification system | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: This is from Music Business Worldwide dot Com. Again, this

0:02 Speaker 1: is another great website. If you like music industry news

0:04 Speaker 1: as I do. This is this involves Spotify and of

0:09 Speaker 1: course AI music. We talk about this a lot on

0:12 Speaker 1: the show. This comes up all the time AI generated music.

0:16 Speaker 1: I'm guilty of it too. I used Suno to make

0:19 Speaker 1: things I haven't recently. But it is interesting. It's a

0:23 Speaker 1: lot of it's really good, shockingly really good stuff. But anyway,

0:28 Speaker 1: but this is an ongoing issue. These AI platforms that

0:32 Speaker 1: are able to create generate very realistic sounding like it

0:36 Speaker 1: was realistic, as in sounds like it was made by

0:38 Speaker 1: humans music. So this article is titled sorry AI artists.

0:42 Speaker 1: Spotify is not letting you become verified on its platform,

0:46 Speaker 1: so it says here Spotify is introducing a new verification

0:49 Speaker 1: badge for artists profiles. It goes beyond simply confirming whether

0:53 Speaker 1: a profile is claimed and instead attempts to signal something

0:57 Speaker 1: the streaming platform says has been come harder to establish

1:01 Speaker 1: in the age of generative AI, the authenticity of the

1:05 Speaker 1: artists behind the music. The new Verified by Spotify badge,

1:11 Speaker 1: announced on Thursday, April thirtieth, will appear on artist profiles

1:15 Speaker 1: and next to artist names and search marked by a

1:18 Speaker 1: light green check mark icon. Spotify said in a blog

1:22 Speaker 1: post published today that quote at launch, profiles that appear

1:27 Speaker 1: to primarily represent AI generated or AI persona artists are

1:31 Speaker 1: not eligible for verification in today's music landscape. The concept

1:35 Speaker 1: of artists authenticity is complex and quickly evolving, and will

1:39 Speaker 1: continue to develop our approach over time. Unquote. Now, the

1:45 Speaker 1: reason that's interesting to me is it's Spotify has made

1:49 Speaker 1: a big deal recently about getting AI music, AI generated music,

1:58 Speaker 1: AI persona artists because there are you know, it's not

2:02 Speaker 1: just people uploading songs that they make with one of

2:04 Speaker 1: these platforms like Suno or Udeo. It's it's entire artists

2:09 Speaker 1: have been created with entire catalogs of music, and they're

2:14 Speaker 1: not real people, they're all they're just AI generated. Spotify

2:18 Speaker 1: has been trying to get rid of they call it

2:20 Speaker 1: AI slop. They've been trying to get that off of

2:21 Speaker 1: their platform. But now this almost feels like on some level,

2:26 Speaker 1: and this is not meant as a criticism, I have

2:28 Speaker 1: criticisms of Spotify, this isn't one of them. I'm actually

2:31 Speaker 1: somewhat sympathetic to the problem. Here. This almost seems like

2:34 Speaker 1: giving into that a little bit and saying we can't

2:37 Speaker 1: possibly filter out all this AI generated music and all

2:40 Speaker 1: these AI generated personas creating this music, sort of however

2:46 Speaker 1: you want to frame that. So what we're going to

2:49 Speaker 1: do now is we're going to have this verification system

2:53 Speaker 1: where an artist who has been verified as being real

2:56 Speaker 1: with real music, they will have an icon next to

2:59 Speaker 1: their name, and artists that don't might be AI generated.

3:04 Speaker 1: So there you go. And I'm assuming that part of that.

3:08 Speaker 1: I mean, I'm maybe I'm making too many assumptions here,

3:10 Speaker 1: but I have to think that some of that is

3:13 Speaker 1: they just can't there's just no way to make sure

3:16 Speaker 1: that they're getting all of the AI generated music off

3:19 Speaker 1: of their platforms. I know some people will tell me

3:21 Speaker 1: the software, the bots that they're using to detect AI

3:24 Speaker 1: generated music is so sophisticated, but it's still going to

3:27 Speaker 1: make mistakes. Some AI music is going to get mixed,

3:31 Speaker 1: I is going to get missed. Other music that is

3:33 Speaker 1: not AI generated is going to get swept up in

3:36 Speaker 1: the net. Because none of this is ever going to

3:39 Speaker 1: be perfect. Let's see, there's a little bit more here.

3:42 Speaker 1: It says the move follows Spotify's launch last month of

3:47 Speaker 1: the Artist Profile Protection feature in beta, which less lets

3:52 Speaker 1: artists review and approve releases before they go live on

3:55 Speaker 1: their profiles, and arrives just days after the streaming platform

4:00 Speaker 1: reported two hundred and ninety three million premium subscribers. So

4:03 Speaker 1: they're doing really well with subscribers. Why is this important, though,

4:07 Speaker 1: If you haven't heard about this, the artist profile protection feature,

4:10 Speaker 1: why does this matter? What does this do well? There's

4:13 Speaker 1: a problem not just on Spotify. It happens on YouTube.

4:17 Speaker 1: We talked about it on the show. One of the

4:18 Speaker 1: first really major examples of this was somebody pretending to

4:22 Speaker 1: be Selene Dion and releasing a religious song on YouTube

4:26 Speaker 1: where this fake Celene Deon and the lyrics of the

4:29 Speaker 1: song is asking God to help her with her her

4:32 Speaker 1: what does she have? A stiff person syndrome, stiff person disease.

4:36 Speaker 1: She's got a terrible, terrible illness. I feel horrible for her.

4:39 Speaker 1: But but someone pretending to be her release a song

4:43 Speaker 1: under the name Selene Dion and uh, you know, people

4:46 Speaker 1: believed it because it's this AI generated track sounded like

4:49 Speaker 1: Celene Deon. So this this seems like common sense. The

4:55 Speaker 1: artist profile protection features. So so somebody can't just say, Okay,

5:00 Speaker 1: I'm gonna release a song, but i'm gonna pretend it's

5:02 Speaker 1: Taylor Swift and I'm gonna put it on Spotify as

5:04 Speaker 1: Taylor Swift. Well, someone from the label that Swift is

5:09 Speaker 1: on or management her management is going to get contacted.

5:13 Speaker 1: Is this legitimate? Is this an actual release? Obviously they're

5:16 Speaker 1: gonna say no, and then it's never going to make

5:18 Speaker 1: it onto the platform to begin with. Which is smart

5:21 Speaker 1: that I fully support. In January, again, this is from

5:24 Speaker 1: Music Business Worldwide dot Com. In January, Spotify had already

5:27 Speaker 1: retired its long standing Verified Artists blue check mark, which

5:32 Speaker 1: simply indicated that an artist had claimed their profile and

5:34 Speaker 1: replaced it with a registered artist label. At the time,

5:38 Speaker 1: Spotify said that quote, over time, the term verified came

5:41 Speaker 1: to suggest more than the check mark was designed to represent. Unquote.

5:47 Speaker 1: The new verified by Spotify Badge now reclaims that language,

5:50 Speaker 1: but applies it to a different, more selective standard. Spotify

5:55 Speaker 1: said in a blog post quote, in the AI era,

5:58 Speaker 1: it's more important than ever to be able to trust

6:00 Speaker 1: the authenticity of the music you listen to. Our focus

6:04 Speaker 1: is providing you with more context about artists and their

6:06 Speaker 1: music so you can build more meaningful connections with them unquote.

6:11 Speaker 1: To receive the badge, artists must demonstrate consistent listener activity

6:15 Speaker 1: and engagement over time, maintain good standing with Spotify's platform policies,

6:20 Speaker 1: and show signals of a real artist's presence both on

6:23 Speaker 1: and off the platform, such as concert dates, merchandise, and

6:27 Speaker 1: linked social accounts. Spotify said it will pair these criteria

6:31 Speaker 1: with quote, human review and judgment to identify real artists

6:34 Speaker 1: behaving in good faith, not just filtering out bad actors unquote.

6:38 Speaker 1: In the blog posts, Spotify claimed that at launch quote,

6:41 Speaker 1: more than ninety nine percent of the artist Spotify listeners

6:44 Speaker 1: actively search for will be verified, representing hundreds of thousands

6:48 Speaker 1: of artists, the majority independent, spanning genres, career stages, and geographies. Unquote.

6:53 Speaker 1: The blog posts added that the company's prioritizing quote artists

6:56 Speaker 1: with active fan interest or who have made important contributions

7:00 Speaker 1: culture and history, rather than functional music creators and content

7:03 Speaker 1: farms whose content is primarily designed for passive or background

7:07 Speaker 1: listening unquote, Approvals will be rolling, and the absence of

7:11 Speaker 1: a badge on an artist profile does not mean the

7:13 Speaker 1: artists will not receive it in the future. According to Spotify.

7:18 Speaker 1: This goes on in some more detail if you want

7:21 Speaker 1: to read the full article because we don't have time

7:23 Speaker 1: to get to the whole thing, but it is up

7:25 Speaker 1: at Music Businessworldwide dot com, again a great resource for

7:29 Speaker 1: music industry news.