Speaker 1: We have some music news. This is interesting.
Speaker 2: So we've talked about Spotify before. This is interesting to
me for a couple of reasons, but you had sent
me this. This is from the Hollywood Reporter. Spotify removes
seventy five million spammy in quotes, spammy songs, cracks down
on AI use by bad actors. The music streaming giant
is looking to modernize, I'm sorry, moderate rather AI generated
music as it floods its platform. I can see how
that would be a problem. By the way, before we
get into the story in a little bit of depth.
Here again, this is from the Hollywood Reporter. This just
went up two days ago, so this is pretty fresh.
But not only not only is this obviously, I mean,
I can see why this would be a problem, right.
AI makes it so easy, like the Puno app, for example,
we've used it on the show. You can create music,
you know, music that sounds like it was created by
real people, really realistic music.
Speaker 3: Because they're sailing it from real people, but not realistically.
Speaker 1: But not only that, so obviously this would be a problem.
Speaker 2: Right. If it's that easy to create it, it's easy
to you know, submit it to Spotify or any other
streaming platform, right, and then and then they will use it.
But the other thing that's interesting to me, and this
came up a few years ago Spotify because we had
talked about this on the show. This was yeah, this
was at least two or three years ago. I think
there was a story about how Spotify was having to
go through and remove a lot of lower quality, you know,
low quality in terms of production value, like stuff that
sounded like demos, for example, not actually fully produced mixed
and mastered music because people were uploading so much music
to Spotify and a lot of it wasn't even necessarily
you know, just just the quality like anything that you
hear on Spotify should it should at minimum be the
same quality that you might hear on the radio or
that you might buy in a store, right, right. So
that was becoming a problem. So Spotify was having to
go through and remove a lot of that. And what
was interesting about that is, you know, people don't necessarily
realize these streaming services. It's not like, think of how
much music gets uploaded to these streaming services every day
across the world. But it's not as though they have
unlimited storage. True, you know, there there is I mean,
you know, they can always make more right. But it's
not as simple as like just you can just upload
millions and millions of songs all at once and it's
just fine. It's not so they have to as there.
And look, I'm not please. I'm not expressing any sympathy
for Spotify because I you know, artists can plain often
and I'll always advocate on the side of artists that
Spotify pays out painfully low amounts of you know, for
the music that you know, pays low amounts of these
artists for making their music available to stream. But it's
it's but but these are problems, you know, it's not
a perfect business model in the sense that there are
pro problems with you know, in terms of storage and
and now they're having to go through and deal with
the onslaught of AI and release all these and remove
rather all these spammy songs that are produced produced by
AI and and not only that, but there's also going
to be the effect of some people and I remember
we talked about this on the show once before. Some
people are going to get caught in that net inevitably
because of technology I'm sure is not perfect. Some people
are going to get caught in that net who are
not in fact, uh, you know these AI artists like
what was her name, Zani m One we talked about
last week or signed So you can't take that or
that or that band. Uh.
Speaker 1: I forget the name of the band now, but we
played something.
Speaker 3: Of theirs Interfury.
Speaker 2: No Interfury is the one that you found or that
guy found you. But there was another band we talked
about on the show who uh is charting?
Speaker 1: Who?
Speaker 2: People thought? Well people people figured out they're not a
real band. But anyway, I forget who the who it
is now, but all their songs are like about war,
like very pro war but very strange.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so these are problems.
Speaker 2: But there's going to be some artists who the software
or whatever they're doing, however they're applying this because you
can't have a human being sitting there doing all this, right,
that software is going to detect artists who aren't necessarily
AI generated, but maybe have AI elements in their you
know AI. I mean you use AI in a recording
studio anyway, you can't avoid it, right, But let's look
at this, so it says here again, this is from
the Hollywood Reporter. 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 and 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 seventy five million spamy tracks began quote the pace
of recent advances in generative generative AI technology has felt
quick and at times unsettling, especially for creatives. At its best,
AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to great
music and for listeners to discover it. At its worst,
AI can be used by bad actors and consent farm
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.
Speaker 1: To bad actors.
Speaker 2: UH the future again, this is from the statement the
future of music industry. Of the music industry is being written,
and we believe the aggressive 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 unquote.
Regarding specifics on the issue of impersonation, Spotify has committed
itself to stronger rules and better enforcement.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: 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.
Vocal impersonation is only allowed in music on Spotify when
the impersonated artist has authorized its usage.
Speaker 1: Unquote.
Speaker 2: By the way, that is, there's more to this article,
but that's one of the points where you know, I
talked about people getting caught in the net again, I'm
not I'm not criticizing Spotify for doing this. I think
this is probably a really good thing, but it's not
going to be perfect. What if you have an artist
who just sounds like they just have a voice similar
to another artist. You know, a lot of artists sound similar.
Speaker 3: And but there's I bet there's things computers can pick
up that's different about the may sound similar to the
human ear.
Speaker 1: But maybe this is.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe maybe, But but what if I just I
can I can see there're being mistakes here. It's not
going to be perfect. And what if an artist here's
someone who they think sounds like them and they make
a complaint, they make a claim, and then it turns
out that the artist who sounds like them is a
real person with a real voice who happens to sound
like them. So there's going to be problems with this.
I mean, ask anybody who's dealt with YouTube, you know,
getting getting all kinds of you know, the stuff YouTube
will put you through if you're a content creator. And
we won't get in all of that that because that's
a whole other conversation, but it's related in the sense that,
you know, sometimes people get caught in a net and
it's it's it's not a good uh, I not a
good thing to have happened to you.
Speaker 3: So it's it's going to be kind of a difficult
thing to navigate.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it says here.
Speaker 2: Additionally, Spotify said it was ramping up quote investments to
protect against another impersonation tactic where uploaders fraudulently deliver music
AI generated or otherwise to another artist profile across streaming services. Uh,
testing new prevention tactics with leading artists distributors to equip
them to better stop these attacks. As at the source unquote. Yeah,
so if you if you make a song that sounds
like Taylor Swift and then you try to upload it
as Taylor Swift's.
Speaker 1: Say, this is a new Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3: Remember, Yeah, people do slimy stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Oh remember we talked about it on the show Selene
Deon where there was this AI generated Celene Dion song
that fooled a lot of people and it was being
Uh it was pretty successful and I think it even
charted on some charts somewhere.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it was.
Speaker 2: It was on YouTube and people thought it was really
her and it wasn't horrible. U. Yeah, but uh, but
but there's also so sometimes if artists have similar names,
I don't remember who it was. It was somebody we
had on the show who they They had tried to
upload their music to Spotify, but their name was somewhat
similar to someone else's name. It wasn't the same name,
but it was somewhat similar, and it and it kept it. Yeah,
it was causing all kinds of problems. I don't remember
the details, but it also says here again. This is
from the Hollywood Reporter. Spotify hopes its new spam filtering
measures will cut down on issues such as mass uploads, duplicates,
SEO hacks, artificially 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 quote will
identify uploaders and tracks engaging in these tactics, tag them,
and stop recommending them unquote. 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, Oh yeah, yeah, it won't be perfect.
The third measure Spotify has introduced is AI disclosure for
music with industry standard credits.
Speaker 1: This is going to be messy with.
Speaker 2: AI increasingly being used in the music industry. The company
wants to increase transparency of its use. Quote, 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. That's that's going to get very, very messy.
That's going to be I want to know. That's going
to be hard though.
Speaker 3: But when you have breck now we have record label
signing AI artists, well, yeah, how does that work?
Speaker 1: Well, that's but that's not messy. That's obvious.
Speaker 2: So it's easy to be transparent about that. But if
you're especially if you're creating any type of electronic music
in the studio or or at home on your on
your laptop, you know, and then how is this that's
going to be tricky.
Speaker 1: I don't know how this is going to work.
Speaker 2: 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 Standard Setting
Organization the AI disclosure information will be displayed.
Speaker 1: Across the Spotify app.
Speaker 2: Spotify's new AI crackdown comes despite the company embracing AI
and other aspects of its business. In February, Spotify said
it will accept more AI narrated audio books on its
platform through a partnership with eleven Labs. 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, Oh, this is the band I was trying
to think of. I couldn't remember the name. In July,
The Guardian reported the band The Velvet sun Down released
two albums and accrued over one million streams on Spotify
before it was revealed that the band and its music
were AI generated. A Universal Music Group spokesperson told the
harl Of Hollywood reporter quote, we welcome Spotify's new AI
protections as important steps toward toward consistent forward. I'm sorry,
steps forward consistent with our longstanding artist centric principles. 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 custodies, custody certification, and name
and likeness verification. The adoption of these measures would inable
artists to reach more fans, have more economic creative opportunities,
and dramatically diminish the sea of noise and irrelevant content
that threatens to drown out artists' voices unquote. All right,
So that is that's what's going on at Spotify. And
again Spotify is nobody's favorite company again because of the
way they pay or don't pay artists. But but I
think this is a good thing that they're doing.
Speaker 1: But we'll see there's going to be some pitfalls with it.