AI (artificial intelligence) music releases have dominated headlines since an AI-generated vocal clone of Drake and The Weeknd titled “Heart on my Sleeve” went viral a few weeks ago and raked up millions of streams across various digital streaming platforms within a few days.
While the song has since been removed from most streaming services, digital streaming platforms (DSPs) like Spotify are still filtering through other unauthorised releases and removing them from the platform.
In the latest development, earlier in the week popular AI-powered music creation app Boomy announced through its Discord server that Spotify had taken away its ability to upload songs to the platform.
It also added that some tracks which had already been uploaded on the platform had been removed.
“Very recently, Spotify stopped publishing new releases from Boomy. Additionally, certain catalogue releases were removed from their platform,” announced Boomy.
“This decision was made by Spotify and Boomy’s distributor in order to enable a review of potentially anomalous activity,” it said.
According to a recent email by Music Business Worldwide, a Spotify spokesperson notified the platform that the releases in question were removed because the streaming platform detected artificial streaming of these tracks.
According to Spotify’s artists platform, an artificial stream is a “stream that doesn't reflect genuine user listening intent, including any instance of attempting to manipulate Spotify by using automated processes (bots or scripts)”.
Spotify also confirmed that any streams for this content have been excluded from royalty calculations. The platform added: “Artificial streaming is a long-standing, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service.
“When we identify or are alerted to potential cases of stream manipulation, we mitigate their impact by taking action that may include the removal of streaming numbers and the withholding of royalties. This allows us to protect royalty payouts for honest, hard working artists.”