Tens of thousands of songs created with the help of the AI music startup Boomy have been removed from the music streaming platform Spotify
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As reported by Financial Times (FT), Spotify has deleted thousands of AI-generated songs from its platform in a bid to address numerous complaints of fraud and clutter on the platform.
The Boomy service allows its customers to create “original songs” in seconds without any previous music experience, as well as submit their songs to streaming platforms and get paid for their AI-enabled creations.
However, the music industry has been lately witnessing “suspicious streaming activity” on Boomy tracks, suggesting that the traffic may have been generated by bots posing as listeners. In this case, the company deals not only with the ethics of artificially created music but also with artificial streaming.
The platform claims this is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is trying to eliminate across its service. The company is also reportedly ramping up its platform policies in light of the given situation.
Music industry giant Universal Music Group (UMG) has recently alerted music streaming companies about the issue, as well as requested to block AI services from accessing music catalogues and remove AI-generated songs from official platforms.
Lucian Grainge, CEO at Universal Music Group, stated that “explosive development in generative AI will, if left unchecked, both increase the flood of unwanted content on platforms and create rights issues with respect to existing copyright law.”
As in the case with other innovative technologies such as crypto, metaverse or NFTs, the problem is that legacy rules do not suit the changing demands of the industries where the new technologies are introduced. There is a strong demand for well-balanced updated regulations in many spheres where innovations bloom. The trick is that new industry laws should simultaneously protect the customers and industry players and not stifle emerging tech.
Meanwhile, Boomy representatives claim the platform is “categorically against” all types of traffic manipulation or artificial streaming of any kind.
