RUMORS have been put to rest over where the streaming giant stands on music produced by artificial intelligence.
After Spotify removed some music that had been generated by AI earlier in the year, a total AI music ban was highly anticipated.
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has put those rumors to bed, clarifying that there will not be a total ban on AI music coming anytime soon for Spotify.
At the beginning of the year, Heart On My Sleeve went viral on TikTok, gaining popularity for how the lyricists sounded like Drake and The Weeknd.
The catch is that the song was generated by AI and was pulled from multiple streaming platforms, including Spotify, after amassing millions of streams.
The industry conversation about AI music will be happening for “many, many years,” Ek told the BBC.
The CEO said that for him there are three different categories of AI music with varying levels of acceptability.
Music that uses AI to autotune the singer or instruments’ pitch and make the music sound better is acceptable.
AI-generated music that mimics other artist’s voices is not acceptable explained Ek.
“You can imagine someone uploading a song, claiming to be Madonna, even if they’re not. We’ve seen pretty much everything in the history of Spotify at this point with people trying to game our system,” he said.
Then there is a third category that is likely to be the source of much debate.
AI-generated music that uses other artists and information to influence the creation of unique music is more debated as some claim that it is an art form too.
AI is able to analyze information taken from already produced music and then produce music using their datasets of songwriting style and audio trends to create unique pieces.
A quick Google search brings about multiple AI music tools available to anyone with the funds to use them, some are even free.
With such easy access to generate industry standard level music without any of the skills that human artists need to cultivate and learn prior to reaching such a level, artists have spoken out against it.
Hozier told the BBC in an interview that he would consider going on strike over the issue explaining that he does not think AI music “meets the definition of art”.
Although Spotify has not taken a hard stance on that third category of AI music, it does not allow its data to be used to train AI that can then generate music.
“It is going to be tricky,” said the CEO about the conversation surrounding AI’s place in the music industry.
After validating industry concerns about AI music as “legitimate” during a first-quarter earnings call, he explained the heart of the issue.
“I think the AI pushback from the copyright industry or labels and media companies, and it’s really around really important topics and issues like name and likeness, what is an actual copyright, who owns the right to something where you upload something and claim it to be Drake, it’s really not and so on. Those are legitimate concerns,” said Ek.