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Spotify today announced a series of new policies designed to address the rapid emergence of AI-generated music on its platform.
The policies will ensure transparency, safeguard royalties, and establish stronger protections for artists and audiences alike, as outlined in a press conference livestream TechJuice was given a private access to.
“People are excited and skeptical about AI-generated music,” began Charlie Hellman, the VP Global Head of Music.
Which is why under the new framework, Spotify confirms that the promotion of AI-generated music will not alter or reduce artist royalties. Spotify will also clearly mention if a song uses AI in any phase of production, may it be lyrics, mixing or even sampling. The livestream confirmed Spotify’s dedication to protecting the creative and financial interests of artists in an evolving digital landscape.
How this process will begin will span three key features. Spotify will begin flagging AI-generated content on its platform. Hellman admitted that more than 75 million AI fraud tracks or “slops” have already been identified and removed from the platform. These tracks usually comprise of some other artist’s voice without consent or a copied version of another track.
The Spotify heads stressed that while detection technology will be used, responsibility for accurate metadata will remain with artists and distributors. The company acknowledges the limitations of current detection tools, which can result in false positives, and is actively advocating for the development of clear industry-wide standards on what constitutes AI-generated music.
To address growing concerns around impersonation, Spotify will implement stronger safeguards to prevent profile mismatches and misuse of AI to replicate existing artists’ identities. Sam Duboff, the Global Marketing Head of Spotify said that the company is closely working with record labels to bring them on board with these new AI policies.
He said 15 labels have already signed, but did not give names. His idea for protecting artists’ copyrights centers around measures (such a getting DDEX standards) are designed to reinforce trust between creators and listeners while protecting intellectual property. He also complained that there was no proper industry standards for identification of AI. Some companies do not consider using lyrics from ChatGPT as AI-generated song, however, other do. He believes that a single standard will greatly help everyone get on board as quickly as possible.
Spotify is also enhancing its spam-detection systems to block mass uploads of low-quality AI-generated content. These adaptive systems will evolve over time, learning from emerging patterns to maintain the quality and integrity of the platform’s music library.
“AI presents both opportunities and challenges for the music industry,” said Duboff, Global Head of Marketing at Spotify. “Our responsibility is to embrace innovation while ensuring that artists are fairly treated and listeners can trust the integrity of the music they enjoy. These policies represent an important step toward achieving that balance.”
Both Hellman and Duboff agreed that AI can sometimes flag a song as false positive, but with their updated identification an trial methods, they seem confident that these scenarios are few and far between.
“This industry standard will allow for more accurate, nuanced disclosures. It won’t force tracks into a false binary where a song either has to be categorically AI or not AI at all,” Duboff noted.
They also denied rumors that Spotify was curating official playlists where AI songs had preference over artists’ songs. Laughing at it, Duboff said that Spotify has never owned any music, may it be AI or not.
Spotify’s updated AI policies are expected to take effect immediately in selected trail areas in the U.S. However, these policies will slowly roll out globally in the coming weeks or months.
Spotify transformed music listening forever when it launched in 2008. Today, millions of people in more than 180 markets have access to over 100 million tracks, 5 million podcasts, and 350,000 audiobooks on Spotify. They are the world’s most popular audio streaming subscription service with more than 550 million users, including 240 million subscribers.
