Spotify Is Filling Up With AI-Generated Music to Scam Revenue From Real Bands

AI has some decent uses. Unfortunately, all the shittier and sinister ones outweigh the good.

Remember that anything "created" by an AI cannot be copyrighted, so the fact that there's a label representing them is concerning... and possibly actionable

Not Actionable… you can sell things that don’t have copyright it just means anyone can sell it, you could theoretically rip the song straight from the internet and resell it on the same platform right next to them (unless any human creativity is involved then that has copyright )
- (unless any human creativity is involved then that has copyright )
  
  This is the part people usually forget when they spout "it can't be copyrighted." If a human edits the output in some capacity then that is still copyrighted. It's not really the gotcha a lot of people seem to think it is.
Even if they ran a local model to make the music?
- Why would what computer the model runs on make even a sliver of difference?

I'm cancelling my family subscription the moment I catch Spotify randomly trying to put AI stuff in my playlist.

It's fate is uncertain because they got sold somewhat recently, but I really like Bandcamp and its model more than Spotify.

Spotify is renting music. You subscribe for two years and at the end of that you have nothing to show for it. The musicians also don't get much from you, either.

Buying albums for $8 a pop, though? It can be cheaper than Spotify if you're like me and pick up about one new album a month. Some stuff I listen to and don't buy. Some months I don't buy anything and just listen to what's in my library. And after a couple years of this, I have a large library of drm free music.

I get that Spotify is easier and for some people their taste is really wide, so maybe renting access makes sense for them. And starting from nothing can be daunting. But I am also certain their are Spotify users that pay every month and just listen to the same four albums.

It can be cheaper than Spotify if you're like me and pick up about one new album a month. Some stuff I listen to and don't buy. Some months I don't buy anything and just listen to what's in my library. And after a couple years of this, I have a large library of drm free music.

The starting from zero and needing a couple of years to build a solid foundation for your library is the biggest hurdle. If you have that foundation, then sure there are probably not more than 12 new albums per year that are worth to buy. But If you don't it's just impossible.

Say you are starting from zero and find that you like the rolling Stones? How long or how expensive does it get with your method before you are even done with their catalogue?

Also a lot of people are probably on the family plan. That changes the equation in favor of Spotify by a lot. You might have 6 users with different tastes, but are only paying like $20 per month?
- Say you are starting from zero and find that you like the rolling Stones? How long or how expensive does it get with your method before you are even done with their catalogue?
  
  Assuming you plan on living a long time, sometimes the long term investment comes out ahead. If you keep renting, you'll never make any progress.
  
  But get why it can seem daunting.
Couldn't agree more. Granted I already had a collection started in the form of high quality mp3s I used to import into iTunes.

Since switching to using only my music library I've started to enjoy radio and "shuffle all" much more. I rediscovered a lot of artists that the streaming apps stopped recommending.

I've, overtime, started replacing my mp3s with flacs from bandcamp. It eases a lot.of stress knowing I own my copies and bandcamp (and qobuz) keeps backups in case I happen to lose my library.

Will there be an AI that has the money to buy AI music and AI books?

Yes with consumer spending at an all time low the world government will decide that in order to keep the status quo intact there has to be an alternative model. Some entrepreneur will come up with the idea of ‚buyBots‘ who are anthropomorphic androids that will get issued a governmental credit card and who’s only goal is to keep dying strip malls alive by roaming the halls and mindlessly buy random stuff 24/7. funnily enough for some unknown reason these bots will for randomly form small groups of 3-5 bots and if one group happens to run into another they will throw their arms in the air, screech joyfully and then merge into a horde of buy bots. This excerpt was written by myAssLLM, if you like it give it an ass up.

Y'know where AI music isn't ending up? In my compact disc collection. (Unless I decide it's really good!)

I don't mind AI music when for example played in the background of YouTube video. That's a neat use case, because otherwise you would need to deal with Copyright holders for each piece of music, and that sucks.

But I'd still rather listen to regular music made by human artists, because at the end do we all want to be just humans that the only thing we pursue from life is to consume AI 'art'? Fuck that dystopic future.

I think you helped me figure out where I stand on AI. What is "the thing"? Did AI create "the thing" or was it a tool to help the creation? Part of a YouTube video is a perfect example. If I want music to set a mood, and I didn't have anything specific in mind, fine. That's about 5% of "the thing" and I can understand using a new tool for the job. But all the random shitty AI-generated pictures floating around social media where that's the entirety "the thing"? They can fuck off.

Basically, do things for the human, not the bots or the clicks. Unfortunately I don't think we're far off from Dead Internet Theory - we have LLMs creating content for SEO. Basically one bot creating content to please another bot. The human element has become an afterthought.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Is that why most of random music all sounds like the same Indie, portlandia, coffee house, folksy, wah wah, almost whispering songs?

U mean you don't like everything sounding like it belongs in an apple commercial?

I knew and have talked to a guy who makes AI generated music, and he's as insufferable as you could imagine. He made YouTube channels and used all the shady tactics you could to get monetized, fake Roblox videos, fake drop shipping tip videos, botting subs, etc.

I've even had the misfortune of being featured against my will on one of his songs under an old alias!

AI can only make mediocre music, the average song with average text, it couldn't invent the next bohemian rhapsody, whatever you ask it to do will be met with a statistical mean of it's training data. Thus average depthless music. We only need a license that pays the electricity bill instead of making too much money. I hope it makes artists get creative again to compete. Anything above average music would do.

AI is definitely capable of making great music right now.

Is it capable of creating another masterpiece, or introduce a new style of music? That's debatable, but I guess in the future it will be possible.

Do I want to listen to AI music on regular basis though? Fuck no.
- AI is definitely capable of making great music right now.
  
  Got any links?

Thankfully I don't use that garbage service.

it is not a scam. ppl pay for music, not art. dua lipa sounds like it is AI remixing the 80s. we need to stop pretending pop music is better than bird music. you can get paid for playing live. napster ftw.

Napster? It's 2024, not 2000...
Bird music?