Spotify tracks fake listenership as bots pose as human listeners

Image credit : Spotify Newsroom An AI business has been charged with using streaming bots that impersonated human listeners to falsely increase the number of people who listen to AI-generated music. According to the Financial Times, Boomy, an AI music business that creates tracks based on user inputs, uploaded "tens of thousands," or around seven percent, of its songs to Spotify. Then, these songs can be shared on Spotify, where they can earn money. The problem on Spotify's end comes from "artificial streaming," which is when bot networks are "listening" to these tracks to artificially raise the number of streams, even though the AI generation of the music itself is probably dubious on an existential level. According to the Financial Times, Universal Music Group brought up the problem to Spotify and warned the other big streaming providers that Boomy's numbers were suspicious. Companies are engaged in a cat-and-mouse game as they strive to stay up with an expanding number of agents trying to cheat the system as AI technologies advance and make it simpler than ever to compose music. This latest AI controversy is UMG's second recent foray into the AI-generated music controversy.

AI Music Deluge

[caption id="attachment_170884" align="aligncenter" width="1440"] Image credit : Spotify Newsroom[/caption] In reaction to a viral AI-generated tune that included a voice clone of Aubrey "Drake" Graham last month, the label practically blew up. The record company ordered that the music be taken down from Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services, comparing the action to "fraud" in a statement given to CNN. It's obvious that the record company will continue its campaign against artificial intelligence in music, and in a statement to FT, Universal's chief digital officer Michael Nash praised Spotify for removing some of Boomy's recordings. "We are always encouraged when we see our partners exercise vigilance around the monitoring or activity on their platforms," said Nash. Streaming providers are completely overrun by AI-generated music. Boomy asserts that it is responsible for 14.5 million songs, or 14% of all recorded music in existence. Also read : Spotify reportedly removes thousands of AI-generated songs It's a troubling development that might eventually threaten the careers of human artists, who only get a pittance from streaming royalties. It's a frenzied game of whack-a-mole that offers a bleak picture of the future of the music industry, a dystopian quagmire that seems very challenging to get out of.