Spotify removes 75 million ‘spam’ tracks from platform in AI crackdown

Spotify says it has removed 75 million AI-generated tracks from its platform over the past year.

The streaming giant announced a significant new crackdown on “spam” tracks earlier this week, pledging to strengthen its AI protections for artists, songwriters, and producers. In a statement, the platform said: “At its best, AI is unlocking incredible new ways for artists to create music and for listeners to discover it. At its worst, AI can be used by bad actors 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 to bad actors.”

New measures being implemented include “stronger impersonation rules”, which will crack down on unauthorised AI voice clones other forms of impersonation. An AI disclosure tool is also being developed to give “artists and rights holders a way to clearly indicate where and how AI played a role in the creation of a track—whether that’s AI-generated vocals, instrumentation, or post-production.”

A new “spam filter” will target “mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse, and other forms of slop” which have “become easier to exploit as AI tools make it simpler for anyone to generate large volumes of music.”

AI-generated spam is a problem for streaming platforms like Spotify and musicians alike because every stream that lasts over 30 seconds generates a royalty for the scammer behind it, thus affecting payments to other legitimate artists. Of the 75 million spam tracks that Spotify has removed over the past year, some were identified before they were uploaded as part of an existing filtering process, while others were taken down after being identified as illicit. The streaming service’s catalogue of actual music stands at around 100 million tracks. 

Spotify has said it will now start rolling out a new music spam filter to identify uploaders of spam tracks, tag them, and stop their tracks from 

Read more about how Spotify is combatting AI spam uploads here.

Last year, Spotify officially demonetised all tracks with under 1,000 streams. While this move was ostensibly implemented as a way to curb “further manipulation by bad actors” using automatic and artificial plays to ramp up stream counts, it came under fire from many artists and unions, who argued that 86% of all content on Spotify would now fail to meet the criteria for royalties based on play count. 

Last year, a report published by Harper’s Magazine alleged that Spotify was filling some of its biggest music playlists with work by “ghost artists”, a group of musicians who create large amounts of music to be distributed specifically across the streaming platform. According to journalist Liz Pelly –  who released her book, Mood Machine: The Rise Of Spotify And The Costs Of The Perfect Playlist earlier this year – the music that is provided through these means is subject to lower royalty rates, and ultimately helps boost Spotify’s profit margins. The practice is reportedly most prevalent across instrumental-heavy playlists focused on genres such as lo-fi hip-hop, ambient, jazz and classical.

It was alleged that more than 500 “ghost artists” exist on Spotify, but that their work is actually created by a small group of around 20 songwriters operating under various aliases. 

In 2023, Spotify embraced AI to launch a new DJ feature, which they subsequently modified to be able to take requests earlier this year.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Spotify would be integrated into rekordbox and Serato, meaning people can now DJ using the streaming service using AlphaTheta and Serato DJ products. 

Many artists have been choosing to remove their music from Spotify. Xiu Xiu, Kalahari Oyster Cult, and Deerhoof are amongst the artists and labels to have exited the platform in response to CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek’s connections to AI military defence company Helsing, including June’s  €600 million investment in the firm, and a previous €100 million stake acquired in 2021.