\n\tS<\/span>potify has updated its policies to strengthen protections against what it calls the \u201cworst\u201d use cases of AI-generated music on the platform. The announcement comes after months of criticism of the streaming service, due to its lack of policies specifically targeting AI music and the growing prevalence of AI artists on the site, including viral AI act The Velvet Sundown<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tThis doesn\u2019t mean the streaming service is taking a hardline stance against all AI music. As Spotify\u2019s Head of Music, Charlie Hellman<\/strong>, said in a press briefing: \u201cI want to be clear about one thing. We\u2019re not here to punish artists for using AI authentically and responsibly. We hope that artists\u2019 use of AI production tools will enable them to be more creative than ever, create more content that excites fans and offer the best possible experience on Spotify. But we are here to stop the bad actors who are gaming the system, and we can only benefit from [the] good side of AI if we aggressively protect against the downside.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAlready, Spotify revealed it has been quietly trying to mitigate the \u201cdownside\u201d of AI. In the last year, Spotify stated it had already removed over \u201c75 million spammy tracks\u201d from the site, which violated Spotify guidelines. Some, but not all, of these tracks are believed to be AI-generated.<\/p>\n \n\tSpotify\u2019s announcement on Thursday (Sept. 25) is largely an update to its pre-existing rules. Already, the company has targeted negative uses of AI music by cracking down on impersonation, artificial streaming and spam content. Those are still the primary ways that the service is policing what it calls \u201cthe worst parts of Gen AI,\u201d but now those rules carry new strength. Below is a breakdown of Spotify\u2019s three new updates: <\/p>\n \n\tIts music spam filter has been updated so that when a user is flagged for using common hacks like mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short tracks and \u201cother forms of slop,\u201d as the company\u2019s press release put it, the tracks and their uploaders will be flagged and the content will no longer be recommended to users. A company spokesperson says this new filter will be rolled out slowly and with caution \u201cto ensure we\u2019re not penalizing the wrong uploaders.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\tJust as before, this filter is not specific to AI-generated songs \u2014 it targets all forms of spam, whether human-made or AI-generated \u2014 but given AI models are able to quickly create new songs in seconds, AI is often used as a way of perpetuating mass uploads on streaming platforms. To experts, spam is seen as detrimental because it is often used to spread out fraudulent or artificial streaming activity over a large number of tracks with the goal of siphoning money away from the royalty pools intended for real artists.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n \n\tOne example of this scheme came to light last September, when federal prosecutors\u00a0indicted a North Carolina musician<\/a>\u00a0for allegedly using AI to create \u201chundreds of thousands\u201d of songs and then using the AI tracks to earn more than $10 million in fraudulent streaming royalties. <\/p>\n \n\tThe company has always had a policy barring deceptive content and deepfakes, but now Spotify\u2019s new impersonation policy has been updated to clarify how it handles claims about AI voice clones (and other forms of unauthorized vocal impersonation).<\/p>\n \n\tSpotify is also addressing its \u201ccontent mismatch\u201d problem with new protections. Content mismatch occurs when an unauthorized individual uploads a song to a different artist\u2019s Spotify page without permission in the hopes that it boosts streams for the song. In recent months, the issue has been brought to wider attention by Paul Bender<\/strong> of the band Haitus Kaiyote<\/strong>, who experienced content mismatch with his side project The Sweet Enoughs and took to social media<\/a> to call out Spotify for it.<\/p>\n \n\tNow, Spotify announced that it will be \u201cinvesting more resources\u201d into the issue \u201creducing the wait time for review, and enabling artists to report \u2018mismatch\u2019 even in the pre-release state.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tThe newest addition to Spotify\u2019s AI-related policies is a new integration with DDEX (Digital Data Exchange), which sets global standards for musical metadata, which will allow those uploading music to Spotify to label when and how AI was used in their creative process. So, if a track was written almost entirely by one person, but one specific instrument in the track was generated with AI, the person can then self-report that to Spotify and have that be displayed in its credits on Spotify \u2014 or any other participating service \u2014 using the DDEX standard. This also works for songwriting, production, vocal, mixing or mastering credits.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe know the use of AI is going to be a spectrum, with artists and producers incorporating AI in various parts of their creative workflow,\u201d says Sam Duboff<\/strong>, Global Head of Marketing and Policy, Spotify for Artists. \u201cAnd this industry standard will allow for more accurate, nuanced disclosures. It won\u2019t force tracks into a false binary where a song either has to be categorically AI or not AI at all. Why does this matter? Listeners get clarity, and artists get a consistent way to share their process with listeners across all services without fear that it\u2019ll affect how their work\u2019s promoted. This isn\u2019t about gatekeeping. It\u2019s about building trust across the whole music ecosystem.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n\n
\n\t\tMusic Spam Filter<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n
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<\/p><\/div>\n\n\t\tStronger Impersonation Rules<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n
\n\t\tStandardized AI Disclosures<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n
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<\/p><\/div>\n![\"Billboard](\"https:\/\/i.imgur.com\/2HpFicp.png\")