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Spotify vs bots: Streaming giant wipes 75 million songs in crackdown on AI deepfakes and spam
The advent of AI tools that can generate large volumes of music has made spam tactics easier to exploit.
The giant audio streaming platform Spotify says it has deleted 75 million fake tracks in the past year as part of its crackdown on AI-generated spam, deepfakes and fake artist uploads.
This purge, which accounts for nearly half of Spotify’s entire archive, highlights the increasing magnitude of the AI-related challenges facing music streaming services.
“Spam tactics have become easier to exploit as AI tools make it possible for anyone to generate large volumes of music,” Spotify said in a statement.
Musicians have long embraced technology, from electric guitars to Auto-Tune. But generative AI is different. With a few clicks, anyone can churn out endless tracks.
Some are creative experiments, but most are just noise. Worse still, scammers are using AI to impersonate real artists, flood algorithms, and siphon royalties, a serious concern for Spotify.
“At its worst, AI can be used by bad actors and content farms to confuse or deceive listeners,” the company noted in a policy update.
However, Spotify executives emphasised that the platform is not banning AI outright. Instead, the company is targeting misuse such as cloned voices of real artists without permission, fake profiles and mass-uploaded spam.
“We’re not here to punish artists for using AI authentically and responsibly. But we are here to stop the bad actors who are gaming the system,” said Charlie Hellman, Spotify’s VP and Global Head of Music.
The new measures include a music spam filter, stricter rules on vocal deep fakes, and tools that allow artists to flag impersonation before publication.
Spotify is also piloting the DDEX disclosure system, which lets creators indicate whether and how AI was used in their work.
The Digital Data Exchange (DDEX) is a set of international standards for exchanging digital media data, designed to improve accuracy across the supply chain involving music creators, distributors, and retailers.
Despite the sweeping removals, Spotify maintains that AI music engagement remains minimal and has not significantly impacted human artists’ revenues.
