DUBAI: Spotify is rolling out new policies to curb misuse of artificial intelligence and encourage greater transparency from artists and publishers about their use of AI on the platform.
Akshat Harbola, Spotify’s managing director for the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, told Arab News: “Every industry is reflecting on the implications of AI right now, and music is no exception.”
The company wants to be thoughtful and responsible in its approach, putting the artist at the center, he added.
As part of this effort, Spotify is urging musicians and producers to adopt a new standard developed by the Digital Data Exchange, a standards-setting organization for the music industry.
Although the system works on a voluntary basis, Spotify said more than 15 labels and distributors had committed to comply with these standards.
The company is also planning to remove tracks impersonating an artist’s voice without consent, and to crack down on fraudulent uploads to artist profiles.
Additionally, over the coming months, Spotify will roll out a music spam filter targeting mass uploads, duplicates, and other spammy practices, which it said are easier to carry out with AI.
The audio streamer will keep updating its policies and tools as it learns more about “how AI fits into the future of music,” Harbola said.
The need for such safeguards became apparent earlier this year when viral band The Velvet Sundown were revealed to be entirely AI-generated — from lyrics and compositions to their virtual members.
The group, which had millions of Spotify streams, eventually admitted on social media they were a “synthetic music project guided by human creative direction, and composed, voiced, and visualized with the support of artificial intelligence.”
On their online profiles, the band are described as: “Not quite human; not quite machine. The Velvet Sundown lives somewhere in between.”
For Spotify, the use and abuse of AI in music is not “just about one AI-generated band or a fleeting online trend,” but rather “part of a broader cultural shift we’re all experiencing together,” Harbola said.
He added: “Whether music is AI-assisted or not, our focus is on helping real artists connect with listeners and upholding the trust and authenticity that make music so powerful.”
