Spotify Removes 75 Million “Spammy” Songs, Cracks Down on AI Use by “Bad Actors”

Spotify is set to strengthen AI protections for artists and music producers with a series of measures, including improved enforcement of impersonation violations, a new spam-filtering system and AI disclosures for music with industry-standard credits.

The music streaming giant made the announcement in a “For the Record” post on its website Thursday, noting that it had removed 75 million “spammy” tracks. “The pace of recent advances in generative AI technology has felt quick and at times unsettling, especially for creatives,” the post begins. “At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. At its worst, AI can be used by bad actors and content farms to confuse or deceive listeners, push ‘slop’ into the ecosystem, and interfere with authentic artists working to build their careers. That kind of harmful AI content degrades the user experience for listeners and often attempts to divert royalties to bad actors.”

Spotify adds, “The future of the music industry is being written, and we believe that aggressively protecting against the worst parts of Gen AI is essential to enabling its potential for artists and producers. We envision a future where artists and producers are in control of how or if they incorporate AI into their creative processes. As always, we leave those creative decisions to artists themselves, while continuing our work to protect them against spam, impersonation, and deception, and providing listeners with greater transparency about the music they hear.”

Regarding specifics, on the issue of impersonation, Spotify has committed itself to stronger rules and better enforcement. “We’ve introduced a new impersonation policy that clarifies how we handle claims about AI voice clones (and other forms of unauthorized vocal impersonation), giving artists stronger protections and clearer recourse,” the company says. “Vocal impersonation is only allowed in music on Spotify when the impersonated artist has authorized the usage.”

Additionally, Spotify said it was ramping up “investments to protect against another impersonation tactic— where uploaders fraudulently deliver music (AI-generated or otherwise) to another artist’s profile across streaming services.” Additionally, the company said it was “testing new prevention tactics with leading artist distributors to equip them to better stop these attacks at the source.”

Spotify hopes its new spam-filtering measures will cut down on issues such as “mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop” that have all become easier and more prevalent due to AI tools. The new spam filter “will identify uploaders and tracks engaging in these tactics, tag them, and stop recommending them.” The company says it will roll out a new music spam filter over the coming months and will be careful not to penalize the wrong uploaders.

The third measure Spotify has introduced is AI disclosures for music with industry-standard credits. With AI increasingly being used in the music industry, the company wants to increase transparency of its use. “We know the use of AI tools is increasingly a spectrum, not a binary, where artists and producers may choose to use AI to help with some parts of their productions and not others. The industry needs a nuanced approach to AI transparency, not forced to classify every song as either ‘is AI’ or ‘not AI,’” says Spotify.

Spotify says it will help develop and support new industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits that are being developed through the Digital Data Exchange, the international standards-setting organization. This AI disclosure information will be displayed across the Spotify app.

Spotify’s new AI crackdown comes despite the company embracing AI in other aspects of its business. In February, Spotify said it will accept more AI-narrated audiobooks on its platform through a partnership with ElevenLabs.

Still, the new AI measures will be welcomed by the major labels and fans after a number of recent news reports of undeclared AI artists racking up thousands of streams on Spotify. In July, The Guardian reported that the band The Velvet Sundown released two albums and accrued over one million streams on Spotfiy before it was revealed the band and its music were AI generated.

“We welcome Spotify’s new AI protections as important steps forward consistent with our longstanding Artist Centric principles,” a Univeral Music Group spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.“We believe AI presents enormous opportunities for both artists and fans, which is why platforms, distributors and aggregators must adopt measures to protect the health of the music ecosystem in order for these opportunities to flourish.These measures include content filtering; checks for infringement across streaming and social platforms; penalty systems for repeat infringers; chain-of-custody certification and name-and-likeness verification.The adoption of these measures would enableartists to reach more fans, have more economic and creative opportunities, and dramatically diminish the sea of noise and irrelevant content that threatens to drown out artists’ voices.”