Spotify reportedly flooded with AI bands as Caliban confirms fraudulent artist posing as them

Many users reported the music streaming giant Spotify had an AI problem after Caliban, a German metalcore band, confirmed on social media that someone posing as the band uploaded an AI-generated song to its artist profile page. On August 27, 2024, the band's official Instagram page released a statement to warn fans about the fraudulent activity.

"Dear Fans, a song has been released via our Spotify artist profile that is not ours. A fraudulent artist posing as Caliban has uploaded an AI-generated song via a dubious distributor that is now scheduled for release. Caliban is not affiliated with this release. We and our team are working to solve this issue," the band said.

As per the statement, many bands like Ghøstkid, Angelmaker, The Ghost Inside, and Bury Tomorrow face a similar problem while record labels and management look into rectifying the situation. The statement concluded with Caliban thanking fans for supporting "real, handcrafted music written by human beings."

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What is Spotify's stance regarding AI-generated music in its service?

According to Slate magazine, a group of Redditors recently noticed a boom in the number of "bands" releasing covers of various songs. However, a closer look into these artists revealed the "bands" had no digital footprint and bios that seemed ChatGPT generated, which led many to believe the covers were AI-generated.

Many users on X showed several cover songs posted under different band names, with the same cover image for all the tracks. The covers also reportedly attracted thousands of listeners, meaning whoever was behind the AI-generated songs profited from this.

A spokesperson for Spotify released a statement claiming that only content providers who uploaded the covers had the autonomy to remove the songs from the platform.

“Spotify does not have a policy against artists creating content using autotune or AI tools, as long as the content does not violate our other policies, including our deceptive content policy, which prohibits impersonation. In this instance, the content was removed by the content providers,” the statement read.

The content providers could refer to the "band," the record label, or the management overseeing the artist. However, Henderson Cole, an entertainment and music lawyer, alleged the content providers could be the various third-party intermediaries artists use to manage their music.

“I think whoever actually distributes this might be nervous about the reports on it and they might have taken it down. People are finding better ways to exploit the streaming system, because technically, this isn’t streaming fraud. If they’re paying somebody to perform cover songs and then using covers to pull streams, that’s not illegal, it’s just exploitative,” he said.

According to BBC, AI-generated content has existed on Spotify for a while. In September 2023, Spotify founder Daniel Ek said he would not restrict AI content on the music streaming platform. However, he added AI should not be utilized to impersonate artists without their permission.

This came after Spotify removed an AI-generated track that mimicked the voices of Drake and The Weeknd on a song called Heart on My Sleeve in April 2023. The song was also submitted to the GRAMMY Awards for Best Rap Song and Song of the Year.

The track, written by someone under the pseudonym Ghostwriter, was turned down by the award show.