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Spotify Has an AI Music Problem--but Bots Love It (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/spotify-ai-music-robot-listeners/IF A SONG is created by artificial intelligence and listened to by a bot, was it even heard at all? It’s a problem music-streaming companies now face as generative AI is rapidly making it easier for anyone to churn out songs with a few clicks, and then send bots to stream them for cash.
"It's a floodgate," says Tony Rigg, a lecturer in music industry management at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. He's talking about the arrival of AI-generated music. And that torrent of new music amplifies the issue of fake listening, giving people a simple way to get streams on low-quality tracks.
Artificial streaming, or bot listening, isn’t new. Some turn to third-party companies promising to boost streams, which then enlist bot-made accounts to listen to the same playlists on repeat. It’s a problem because streaming companies divide up royalty payments from a limited pool of cash—the more a song plays, the more its creator earns. So, more money for songs listened to by bots can mean that less is sent to those with human fans. Human artists have already been caught up in artificial streaming scandals, but AI is adding a new element.
-snip-
When bots are listening to music made largely by bots, they undermine an entire creative industry. Artists have been pushed to major streaming platforms to make paltry royalties off their recorded work. But they’re struggling to keep up the way generative AI is uprooting the music industry. Even Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek acknowledged last month that he has yet to see “anything moving as fast as the development of AI.” If Spotify doesn’t catch up, it’s human artists who will be left behind.
-snip-
"It's a floodgate," says Tony Rigg, a lecturer in music industry management at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. He's talking about the arrival of AI-generated music. And that torrent of new music amplifies the issue of fake listening, giving people a simple way to get streams on low-quality tracks.
Artificial streaming, or bot listening, isn’t new. Some turn to third-party companies promising to boost streams, which then enlist bot-made accounts to listen to the same playlists on repeat. It’s a problem because streaming companies divide up royalty payments from a limited pool of cash—the more a song plays, the more its creator earns. So, more money for songs listened to by bots can mean that less is sent to those with human fans. Human artists have already been caught up in artificial streaming scandals, but AI is adding a new element.
-snip-
When bots are listening to music made largely by bots, they undermine an entire creative industry. Artists have been pushed to major streaming platforms to make paltry royalties off their recorded work. But they’re struggling to keep up the way generative AI is uprooting the music industry. Even Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek acknowledged last month that he has yet to see “anything moving as fast as the development of AI.” If Spotify doesn’t catch up, it’s human artists who will be left behind.
-snip-
More at the link.
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