AI-generated music is flooding streaming platforms, and Spotify is finally stepping in to clean house. The streaming giant just rolled out a batch of tough new policies aimed at cutting down on AI “slop”. This includes unauthorized vocal clones, fake track uploads, and mass-produced spam that’s ruining playlists and draining artist royalties.
First up, Spotify wants total transparency. Artists now have to reveal exactly how much of their track used AI, whether it’s vocals, instrumentals, or post-production. So, say goodbye to vague “is this AI?” questions, as listeners will finally get the full story.
But that’s not all. The platform is also debuting a whole new impersonation policy, putting up stronger barriers against voice clones and music delivered to the wrong artist profile. If you’re a real musician, that means better protection from scammers and a clearer recourse if someone tries to rip off your sound. Spotify admits the “pace of recent advances in generative AI technology has felt quick and at times unsettling, especially for creatives.” The best of AI lets artists experiment and fans discover new genres. The worst? Content farms and bad actors use it to flood the system with spam, trick listeners, and pocket royalties that should be going to real musicians.
The company exposed other dirty tricks too, like mass song uploads, duplicated tracks, SEO hacks, tracks that are deliberately tiny, and even more “slop” made possible by cheap AI tech.
To choke off the spam, Spotify is rolling out a robust new filter this fall. It’ll identify and tag dodgy content, block it from recommendations, and get this, Spotify says it’s removed more than 75 million scam tracks in the last year alone!
Now, all of this does not mean that Spotify as a platform is against Ai generated content, and the best example of this is the retention of ‘The Velvet Sundown’, which is completely generated using AI, but the creators have been transperant about it from day 1, and if you are a budding artist is who is using AI as a creative tool to help your organically created content, or maybe you are an artist who has the vision and are using AI to create truly unique content, then the doors are open for you.
