Spotify Cracks Down as AI "One-Click Music" Floods In, Removes 50 Million Tracks from Recommendations

Spotify: "Removing AI-Generated Slop Tracks from Recommendations"

Spotify, a music streaming service, said it would protect human creators' songs from low-quality music mass-produced with artificial intelligence (AI). It has therefore removed more than 50 million tracks believed to have been created by AI from its recommendation lists.

"AI Music Doesn't Deserve a Place in Users' Recommendations"

According to U.S. broadcaster NBC and others on Wednesday (local time), Spotify described AI-generated music as "slop and spam" in a statement released the previous day, criticizing it as music that "doesn't deserve a place in users' recommendations." It added, "We've introduced changes to block this content and protect the listening experience."

Last year, Spotify removed 75 million tracks from its recommendation lists for seriously and repeatedly violating its rules. Those rules prohibit copying existing creators' content or producing it artificially.

AFP-Yonhap News

The latest move comes as Spotify and other streaming services struggle to filter out impersonation and deceptive practices amid a surge in AI-generated tracks. Spotify said it had sought help from users to address the problem. A review of songs that users had repeatedly skipped or ignored, or marked as ones they did not want to hear, over the past six months found that many were associated with artificially generated, low-quality tracks.

Spotify used these findings to improve its recommendation system. As a result, it said, the system reduced exposure to low-quality tracks and was able to recommend more music created by human artists.

Acknowledging Limits to AI Detection: "It's Getting Harder"

Spotify said, however, that AI detection tools have limitations and that identifying suspicious tracks is becoming increasingly difficult. The company plans to continue tracking new forms of abuse, including mass uploads, duplicate tracks, search engine optimization (SEO) manipulation, and unusually short tracks, while continually improving its detection systems.

The spread of AI-generated tracks could also affect human creators' earnings. Spotify distributes royalties based, among other factors, on each creator's share of total streams. If AI-generated music increases and the total number of streams grows, the share of revenue going to human creators will decline. To receive royalties from Spotify, an artist's music must be streamed at least 1,000 times.

Spotify has also introduced a feature that allows creators to disclose their use of AI. Earlier this year, Spotify introduced a feature for adding an "AI disclosure." It allows creators to disclose that they used AI for part of a song. Spotify also labels tracks believed to have been made by AI as "AI personas," and excludes them from recommendation lists.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.