Spotify Removed An Estimated 75 Million Tracks From Its Platform

SOURCE: 2oceansvibe.com

In what has been one of the biggest clean-ups in the music streaming industry’s history, Spotify has removed an estimated 75 million tracks from its platform, putting them under renewed scrutiny.

This move was to crack down on a growing wave of fake, mass-produced songs uploaded purely to manipulate the platform’s royalty system and divert earnings away from the real artists. The scale of this issue reveals just how quickly AI-generated content is reshaping music streaming and why platforms.

Spotify has said that it’s not artificial intelligence itself that is the problem here, but rather the misuse of this technology. Senior director, Sam Duboff, said that the platform is targeting AI slop, or low-quality tracks that are generated in seconds and uploaded in huge volumes with little or no creative input.

Around 100 000 new tracks are uploaded to Spotify every day, with industry estimates suggesting that almost half  new music arriving on streaming platforms is now AI-generated. And the motivation for this is simple: It all comes down to money.

Every stream feeds into a shared royalty pool, making the system vulnerable to abuse. Fraudsters exploit this by uploading vast catalogues of generic ambient sounds, meditation tracks and repetitive instrumental music, then using bots to artificially inflate their streaming numbers.

Often released under fabricated artist names, these tracks are designed for background playlists where listeners are unlikely to pay attention to who’s performing. As a result, royalties that should go to legitimate musicians are instead going to those who have gamed the system.

This type of fraud has real consequences for independent South African artists, where every stream can make a meaningful difference. This is because every fake stream reduces the share available to musicians who have invested their time, talent and resources into creating original music.

While Spotify has said that AI-created music is not automatically banned, creators using it must have the proper commercial rights and use of the technology must form part of a legitimate creative process. They have strengthened their machine-learning systems to detect suspicious upload patterns and streaming activity associated with bots to try and curb this concern.

Unauthorised AI voice cloning, or tracks that imitate the voices of established artists without permission, will also be removed.

This comes at the same time as the debate about AI’s place in the music industry is raging. Record industry organisations are pushing for clearer labelling that would identify whether songs are AI-generated or AI-assisted, as they want listeners to be able to make informed choices with the help of more transparency. This will also protect the work of human artists.

While this removal marks an important step, the challenge is now trying to stay ahead of those who are trying to game the system. Because the only thing that should be on repeat is good music, not royalty scams.