Spotify's New Policy Won't Stop the Wave of AI Slop

"Over the last couple of months, in protest of CEO Daniel Ek hurling venture capital at the AI weapons company Helsing, a wave of musicians have stripped their music off Spotify. Indie faves like Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, Hotline TNT, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have all joined the fray. Last week, Deradoorian and Massive Attack announced their departure from the platform, quickly followed by Sylvan Esso."

"It feels like the latest and grandest move in the streamer's ongoing reputation rehabilitation campaign. During the last few months, the company has unleashed a flood of features and security measures that might just be conveniently timed, but also feel like tactics to deflect from the negative PR. Among them is a tool to let users DM friends on the platform-a feature the company reheated from a decade ago, when they tested then killed it after barely anyone used it."

"The only update that actually hooked me is Spotify's new announcement around AI and spam. They claim that over the last year, they've removed 75 million songs engaging in what they call "spam tactics": people mass-uploading generic nonsense; the same songs uploaded twice or thrice; cheats to hijack the SEO (like stuffing keywords in titles to get algorithmically surfaced easier); and "artificially short track abuse," which is when people split up longer songs into short segments to rack up royalties."

Musicians have been removing catalogs from Spotify in protest of CEO Daniel Ek's venture investment in Helsing, an AI weapons company. High-profile indie acts including Xiu Xiu, Deerhoof, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Deradoorian, Massive Attack, and Sylvan Esso have withdrawn music. Ek shifted from CEO to Executive Chairman while the former CTO and CBO became the new co-chiefs reporting to him. Spotify has rolled out features such as DMs and lossless audio alongside security measures. The company reports removing 75 million tracks for alleged spam tactics and teased a spam filter plus artist-upload tools.

Read at Pitchfork