Spotify allegedly publishing AI-generated tracks from dead musicians

Spotify, a global audio streaming and media service provider, has sparked a major controversy for allegedly publishing AI-generated music attributed to deceased musicians. 

According to a Dexerto report, the platform shared the songs without the consent or involvement of their estates, labels, or rights holders.

As per a July 23 report by Business Today, 404 Media disclosed Spotify's involvement in releasing AI-generated songs of the late artists.

Spotify is facing intense backlash

With the allegations of releasing AI-generated music of deceased musicians on the platform surfacing on the internet, Spotify has found itself at the center of a controversy. Renowned Texas country singer-songwriter Blaze Foley died decades ago. Reportedly, he was murdered in 1989. On July 14, a song named Together was noticed to be visible on the singer's official Spotify profile. 

As Dexerto confirmed, this new country song sounded more modern when compared to Blaze's authentic music style and flow. The track has been released with an album cover image generated using artificial intelligence. Delving further into the details of the song in question, Business Today noted that the man with a microphone featured on the cover art has no real-life association with Foley. Also, "Syntax Error" was listed as the copyright owner according to its metadata.

The unexpected development has shocked many. Amid the major controversy, Lost Art Records spoke with 404 Media and reflected on Spotify releasing AI-generated music for deceased artists. 

Lost Art Records is a popular label known for distributing Blaze Foley's songs. It also looks after the artists' official Spotify profile. While conversing with the outlet over a call, the label's owner, Craig McDonald, pointed out that fans could easily recognize that Foley did not sing Together. 

Claiming it to be created with artificial intelligence, he also added,

"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."

Craig's wife first found out the song was listed on Foley's Spotify profile a few days ago. Despite noticing it, they have yet to flag the concern with Spotify. However, the label had a conversation regarding the new AI-generated track with Secretly Distribution, Lost Art's distribution partner. At the time of speaking with 404 Media, McDonald did not receive any response. 

McDonald planned to release the late artist's songs on the music platform, aiming to boost its accessibility among more fans. He expressed disbelief that an AI-generated song was actually included in Blaze Foley’s official page without his authorization.

Looking back on the development, he elaborated,

"It's harmful to Blaze's standing that this happened. It's kind of surprising that Spotify doesn't have a security fix for this type of action, and I think the responsibility is all on Spotify. They could fix this problem. One of their talented software engineers could stop this fraudulent practice in its tracks, if they had the will to do so. And I think they should take that responsibility and do something quickly."

Later, he also proposed a solution for the much-talked-about challenge. His recommendation involves the official page owner approving any track before it can be published on the platform.

Understandably disappointed, Craig also conveyed that real fans of Blaze would know "pretty instantly" that the newly released country song "is not Blaze or a Blaze recording." Describing the consequences of this act, he explained,

"Then the harm is that the people who don't know Blaze go to the site thinking, maybe this is part of Blaze, when clearly it's not. So again, I think Spotify could easily change some practices. I'm not an engineer, but I think it's pretty easy to stop this from happening in the future."

Last week, a song titled Happened To You was released on the official Spotify page of Guy Clark, per Dexerto. The legendary Grammy winner passed away in 2016. Interestingly, this track featured the Syntax Error copyright tag. 

Another song that had the same copyright mark was With You. Reportedly, it appeared on Dan Berk's page. Dan has not issued a statement yet.

As Dexerto cited, a deepfake detection company named Reality Defender confirmed that Together, Happened To You, and With You were generated using artificial intelligence. At present, there is no verified company by the name Syntax Error identified as the source of these strange uploads.

These new releases were not the first time AI-generated music featured on Spotify. In the past, Velvet Sundown welcomed this technology. However, the recent trend appears to be crossing a line, as it involves unapproved AI-generated tracks being released on late artists' official pages without any authorization, further hurting the real singers' artistry and potentially misleading fans.

Amid the backlash, a Spotify spokesperson released a statement with 404 Media over email, noting,

"We've flagged the issue to SoundOn, the distributor of the content in question, and it has been removed for violating our Deceptive Content policy."

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