The emergence of AI-generated music, including bands like The Velvet Sundown and TaTa, is intensifying disputes within the music industry, with the latest controversy involving AI-generated songs appearing on the Spotify profiles of deceased artists.
One notable incident involved a song titled “Together” that surfaced on the Spotify page of country music singer-songwriter Blaze Foley, who passed away nearly 40 years ago. The song, which appeared last week, has since been removed by Spotify. A spokesperson for Spotify confirmed to Mashable via email that the song was taken down for violating “Spotify’s deceptive content policies, which prohibit impersonation intended to mislead, such as replicating another creator’s name, image, or description, or posing as a person, brand, or organization in a deceptive manner.”
Before its removal, 404 Media reported that “Together” exhibited characteristics typical of a Foley song, including a male country singer, piano, and electric guitar, sounding vaguely like “a new, slow country song.” The song’s page also featured an AI-generated image of a man singing into a microphone who did not resemble Foley. Craig McDonald, owner of Lost Art Records, Foley’s music label, emphatically stated to 404 Media, “I can clearly tell you that this song is not Blaze, not anywhere near Blaze’s style, at all. It’s kind of an AI schlock bot, if you will. It has nothing to do with the Blaze you know, that whole posting has the authenticity of an algorithm.”
Blaze Foley is not an isolated case. According to 404 Media, AI-generated music also appeared on the Spotify page of Grammy-winning country singer-songwriter Guy Clark, who died a decade ago. Similar to the Foley incident, the image displayed for Clark was also AI-generated and did not resemble the artist.
In response to these incidents, a Spotify spokesperson issued a statement indicating that the platform will “take action against licensors and distributors who fail to police for this kind of fraud and those who commit repeated or egregious violations can and have been permanently removed from Spotify.”
While music writer Ted Gioia praised Spotify’s swift response in his Substack, some Spotify users express concerns about the platform’s handling of the AI music phenomenon. A Reddit user commented in a thread about the issue, “I’m about halfway through my Discover Weekly for this week, so far 3 songs are AI generated.” Another user suggested, “they need to add an AI filter asap or im done with them.”
Spotify appears to be adopting a defensive stance: if AI is used deceptively on a song or album and discovered, it will be removed. However, there is currently no specific tag to identify AI-generated music, a feature many listeners and online commentators are advocating for. Mashable’s request for clarification from Spotify regarding its methods for identifying AI-generated music or its plans to add such a tag went unanswered.
The Guardian recently reported that while streaming services like Spotify are “under no legal obligation to identify AI-generated music,” a growing number of listeners and music professionals are calling for government intervention. Their aim is to ensure that consumers are aware of the extent to which AI was utilized in the creation of the music they stream.
Sophie Jones, Chief Strategy Officer at the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a music trade body, conveyed to The Guardian, “We’re calling on the UK government to protect copyright and introduce new transparency obligations for AI companies so that music rights can be licensed and enforced, as well as calling for the clear labelling of content solely generated by AI.”
