Music Companies Wage a War on AI-Generated Music

Raise your hand if you can’t tell the difference between AI-Drake and real Drake. ✋

There’s an onslaught of uploaded AI-generated music — and it’s becoming a problem for streaming platforms and record labels.

It starts with AI-music creation apps like Boomy — where you can “create original songs in seconds” and “submit your songs to streaming platforms and get paid when people listen.”

That isn’t sitting well with music giants

Universal Music Group (OTC:UMGNF) — which controls over 30% of the world’s music — isn’t hesitating “to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists.”

UMG says these songs “might have been trained on copyrighted content without obtaining the required consents.” And here’s what they’re doing about it:

• Urging streaming services to block AI tools from scraping their music and lyrics.
• Sending takedown requests on AI-generated songs “left and right.”

Several apps used to create AI-generated music and YouTube channels with AI-generated covers have already been taken down.

Take the fight to the distributor

Just like buying followers, users can also buy Spotify plays — and music platforms have seen higher suspicious streaming activity on Boomy tracks. Now, UMG wants action from streaming platforms like Spotify (NYSE:SPOT).

• Spotify removed ~7% of the tracks uploaded by Boomy, equivalent to “tens of thousands” of songs (FT).
• They removed the songs due to “artificial streaming” — plays from bots push up streaming numbers.

Music platforms have a long fight ahead of them — especially as the tech gets better.

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