AI Impersonation Targets Musicians on Spotify, Sparking Industry Concerns
Renowned jazz composer and pianist Jason Moran received an unexpected call from his friend, bassist Burniss Earl Travis, last month. Travis had spotted a new record attributed to Moran on the music streaming service Spotify, but something felt off. "It has your name on it," Travis told him, "but I don't think it's you." This unsettling discovery has exposed a troubling trend of AI-generated music impersonating real artists on streaming platforms.
The Unwelcome Discovery
Moran, who does not use Spotify and prefers to distribute his music exclusively through Bandcamp, was baffled. Upon investigation, he found an artist profile under his name on Spotify, populated with albums from his former label, Blue Note Records, which owns the rights to his early work. Among these was a new EP titled For You, featuring moody Japanese anime-style artwork depicting a young woman in the rain. When Moran listened, he was shocked. "There's not even a piano player on this whole damn record," he said with a laugh, describing the music as indie pop, utterly unlike his own style. He immediately sought to have the fake album removed.
A Growing Problem Across the Industry
Moran is not alone. He is among a growing number of musicians targeted by what appear to be AI bots masquerading as real artists on streaming platforms. This issue has affected at least a dozen famous jazz musicians, indie rock artists, and even high-profile rappers like Drake. For artists dealing with this deluge of AI-generated content, the experience is both frustrating and surreal. Moran likened it to a Black Mirror episode, where a reality-show version of a character negatively impacts the original's life without their direct involvement.
Spotify has acknowledged the problem, revealing last September that it removed over 75 million "spammy tracks" in the previous 12 months. The company has since strengthened protections for musicians, including stricter rules against impersonation. In a recent blog post, Spotify announced a new tool to give artists more control over what appears under their name, allowing them to review and approve or decline releases before they go live. A spokesperson stated that Spotify employs various safeguards, including systems to detect unauthorized content, human review, and reporting processes, and highlighted that it is the only streaming service offering such a tool.
Inadequate Solutions and Ongoing Challenges
However, for Moran, former artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center, these measures fall short. He points out that AI content isn't always flagged internally, and the problem shows no signs of abating. He is particularly concerned about artists who don't use Spotify or those who are deceased, such as jazz legends John Coltrane or Billie Holiday. "How does John Coltrane verify or Billie Holiday verify that this new record is not some fake, you know, '1952 just-found concert from Paris'?" Moran questioned. "They have no way of doing that ... there's no way for them to object."
Spotify's spokesperson noted that estate or rights holders for deceased artists can opt into the new tool if they have an account. For artists without accounts, whether alive or deceased, the company will rely on its internal detection systems. Yet, Moran's experience underscores the limitations of this approach. After Travis alerted him to the fake album, Moran posted about it on social media, prompting numerous other artists to share similar stories of AI impersonation.
Widespread Impact and Financial Implications
In the jazz genre alone, AI impersonation has affected pianist Benny Green, saxophonist Antonio Hart, drummer Nate Smith, the Australian band Hiatus Kaiyote, and singers Dee Dee Bridgewater, Jazzmeia Horn, and Freddy Cole. Beyond jazz, indie rock musicians Luke Temple and Uncle Tupelo, electro-pop artist Sophie, country singer Blaze Foley, and the Australian psych-rock band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard have also been targeted. In a bizarre case, King Gizzard removed their music from Spotify, only to see an AI impersonator called King Lizard Wizard fill the void with identical song titles and poorly imitated artwork.
Morgan Hayduk, co-CEO of Beatdapp, a company specializing in fraud detection for music streaming, emphasized that this issue extends beyond Spotify to platforms like Apple Music and YouTube. His company estimates that 5% to 10% of all streams across the industry are fraudulent, translating to $1 billion to $2 billion annually in lost revenue. "It's material to the industry, and it's material downstream to every artist and every person who supports artists who make a living off of their music," Hayduk said.
AI as an Accelerant for Fraud
Hayduk explained that while fraudulent music streams have long plagued the industry, generative AI has supercharged the problem. When music is streamed, creators earn a few pennies per play, which can multiply rapidly with enough clicks. AI enables bad actors to produce vast amounts of content quickly, and any removed songs can be easily replaced. "AI has become an accelerant," Hayduk noted, citing the case of Michael Smith, who recently pleaded guilty to defrauding streaming platforms by flooding them with AI-generated songs and using bots to inflate listens, earning over $10 million in royalties over seven years.
The Burden on Artists
After discovering the AI impersonation, Moran contacted Spotify for help, navigating an initial chatbot interaction before reaching a human representative. The process led to the removal of For You from his profile within 72 hours. While relieved, Moran pointed out the unfair burden placed on artists. "They allow it to just kind of sit there unless the artist finds it and checks it," he said. "The demand that it puts on us is unfair in a lot of ways."
In some cases, bogus AI songs sound vaguely similar to the musician's work; in others, they are completely unrelated. Albums from other artists can also appear on a musician's page due to metadata errors, as happened to Moran when a record by the Belgian band Schntzl briefly appeared on his profile. Despite Spotify's removal efforts, For You resurfaced on YouTube three weeks later, with the same artwork and track list, though it did not appear on Moran's official YouTube artist profile. YouTube did not respond to requests for comment.
Legal and Ethical Complexities
Adam Berkowitz, a PhD candidate studying AI and copyright law in the music industry, highlighted the complexities streaming services face in automatically removing content over impersonation issues. "It gets a little complicated because all of a sudden, the private sector is enforcing law. And that's just not how it's supposed to be," Berkowitz said. "It is the courts that enforce law." With most artists unlikely to pursue legal action, and courts struggling to keep pace with these rapid developments, Berkowitz suggested that the onus will likely remain on artists to police their own profiles.
Moran, who exclusively uses Bandcamp for his music, appreciates the control it offers over his profile and pricing, giving him more agency as an independent artist. In the world of improvisational jazz, he emphasized that music creation is about art and connection, not just financial gain. "One thing that [people] can never get charged for is the power of the songs," he said, underscoring the deeper value at stake amidst this technological challenge.
