Photo Credit: Markus Spiske
Spotify has reportedly pulled a number of songs created through Boomy and ceased allowing new releases from the AI music platform – albeit because of alleged fake streams as opposed to the way the tracks were made.
This newest twist in AI’s rapidly evolving music industry role just recently came to light in a brief message that Berkeley-headquartered Boomy posted on Discord. A self-described “generative tech company,” the five-year-old entity says it “enables anyone with a smartphone to produce and monetize world-class original songs.”
But as an abundance of AI-created music (including extremely similar minute-long “songs”) continues to arrive on platforms, Boomy in the aforementioned detail-light post informed users that Spotify had hit the brakes on new releases and pulled the plug on select existing projects.
“Very recently, Spotify stopped publishing new releases from Boomy,” the company explained in part. “Additionally, certain catalog releases were removed from their platform. This decision was made by Spotify and Boomy’s distributor in order to enable a review of potentially anomalous activity.”
Boomy – which has according to its website been used to create “14,414,689 songs, around 13.81% of the world’s recorded music” – also indicated that “these pauses are likely to happen more regularly and across a wider set of platforms” moving forward. The occurrence, the AI developer relayed, is a byproduct of the music sphere’s ongoing efforts “to navigate the use of bots and other types of potentially suspicious activity.”
After this message circulated, a Spotify spokesperson clarified that alleged fake streams, not the fact that the music in question was created with artificial intelligence, were behind the pulldowns and the pause on the distribution of new Boomy-generated projects.
Despite the explanation, however, reports have stated that Universal Music Group and the other major labels are for obvious reasons pushing Spotify as well as distributors to put the kibosh on AI music. Though soundalike tracks are largely absent from the Stockholm-based company’s platform at present, artificial intelligence works made to mimic releases from commercially prominent acts are still making waves on YouTube.
Beyond these projects, one needn’t stretch the imagination to see how the quick-expanding library of non-infringing AI releases could likewise draw streams and fan interest away from music crafted by actual people and artists. (Believe recently communicated that it wouldn’t distribute music made entirely by AI.) And with artificial intelligence still picking up steam (and serious funding) in music and elsewhere, logic suggests that the technology’s impact is poised to broaden dramatically in the not-so-distant future.
UMG head Lucian Grainge against this backdrop kicked off 2023 by calling out “some bad actors who do not share our commitment to artists and artistry,” referring specifically to “those committed to gaming the system through quantity over quality.”
“The current environment has attracted players who see an economic opportunity in flooding platforms with all sorts of irrelevant content that deprives both artists and labels from the compensation they deserve,” spelled out the UMG head, whose company is collaborating with Tidal and Deezer on streaming-reform plans.