Spotify Removes Many AI-Generated Songs After Universal Music Noted Suspicious Bot Activities

The decision to remove Boomy’s content was intended to mitigate the effect of streaming manipulation by Spotify.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Richa Sharma | Updated: 10 May 2023 19:37 IST

Spotify Removes Many AI-Generated Songs After Universal Music Noted Suspicious Bot Activities

Photo Credit: Reuters

Spotify has been monitoring its platform to keep content manipulation under check

Highlights

Boomy has not commented on the development
Universal Music said it encourages content platforms being vigilant
Spotify can withhold royalty payments if it detects suspicious activities

Spotify, in an attempt to control the proliferation of computer-generated music on its platform, removed seven percent of the songs published by AI music company, Boomy. The move from Spotify came after Universal Music nudged the Swedish music mammoth about having noticed suspicious activities picking pace around Boomy's content, especially in-terms of listener figures. Meanwhile, the sudden boom in AI-generated content flooding the internet has left several industries in worry, including the music industry.

Universal Music reached out to Spotify recently, pointing out that bots could have been deployed to bring more listener counts to Boomy's songs — which could deceptively be fetching loads of money to the uploaders of this content.

Such activities are infamous as ‘streaming manipulation', which leads to a wrongful collection of royalty fees while also stirring unwanted state of hyper competition. “Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service,” said a report by Financial Times.

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The decision to remove Boomy's content was intended to mitigate the effect of streaming manipulation by Spotify.

Other ways in which the music streaming giant tackles bot activities and streaming tricks includes erasing the number of streams as well as blocking the payments of royalties.

Michael Nash, the chief digital officer of Universal Music, also confirmed the development to Financial Times.

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In a statement, Nash noted that the 1934-launched music label strongly encourages vigilance by media platforms being kept clean and well monitored.

Boomy, as of now, has not reacted to Spotify deleting thousands of its songs. At the time of writing, Spotify showed 2,442 listeners of Boomy's songs.

The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence to generate content, however, has triggered waves of alarm among the writers and artists communities across the world.

A Bloomberg report recently zeroed-in on the situation and said, “Music's disruptive future risks looking a lot like its past: noisy and unequal. Record labels aren't entirely wrong in asking streaming platforms to clean house in favour of more ‘huma'” music. But this is also a good moment to think up fairer ways to distribute the streaming spoils and keep new human artists emerging. If whales are about to become a musically endangered species, what hope is there for the rest of us?”

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Further reading: Apps, Spotify, Boomy, Universal Music, AI, Artificial Intelligence

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More