Spotify removes thousands of songs created with Boomy’s AI

Listen to the audio version of the article

While the “ethical” debate on artificial intelligence rages and ends up involving more or less all the founders of Big Tech, Spotify removes tens of thousands of songs created through AI by users of the Californian startup Boomy. Reason: listening “inflated” by the use of bots. As often happens when we talk about data that has economic (and financial) repercussions, it was the complaints of a competitor that led to regulatory intervention. And not just any competitor: none other than Universal Music Group, the first major of the global record market.

The music industry has also faced a lot with AI in recent months, in particular with the phenomenon of the increase in songs generated by artificial intelligence that crowd streaming platforms every day. The largest of these, Spotify, recently deleted about 7% of the songs uploaded by Boomy, the equivalent of “tens of thousands” of songs. According to the reconstruction of the Financial Times, Umg had reported to all major streaming platforms the presence of suspicious streaming activity on Boomy’s songs. That is the classic case of “artificial streaming”: online bots that pretend to be human listeners to inflate the performance of some songs. A phenomenon that, to tell the truth, also involves songs by artists in the flesh.

Let’s assume, however, that artificial intelligence has made this practice easier because it allows you to instantly generate thousands of songs that are then made available in streaming. Boomy, a service launched two years ago, allows users to create songs from predefined styles. Users can then publish the music in question on streaming platforms, where they will receive royalties payments. According to Boomy, its users have generated more than 14 million songs to date. Spotify has confirmed that it has removed some Boomy content.

The crackdown comes as Universal Music Group CEO Lucian Grainge talks about the proliferation of songs on platforms like Spotify, where 100,000 new songs are added every day, and the growing manipulation of the system. Grainge told investors last week that “the recent explosive development of generative artificial intelligence, if left unchecked, will increase the tide of unwanted content on platforms and create rights issues in relation to copyright law.”

Universal sent a letter to the platforms a month ago asking them to crack down on songs made using generative Ai. More or less in the same days that a fake song went viral which, thanks to artificial intelligence, saw the voices of Drake and The Weeknd interact. The phenomenon was also noticed by Daniel Ek, founder of Spotify who last week, speaking to analysts about the speed with which the use of artificial intelligence in music is progressing, said: «I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this in technology ». If he says so, we can trust him.