Spotify cleans up its playlists, removes thousands of AI-made songs

Music streaming platform Spotify has removed tens of thousands of songs from artificial intelligence (AI) music startup Boomy amid complaints of fraud and clutter across streaming services.

According to the Financial Times, citing sources, the company recently took down about 7 per cent of the tracks, equivalent to "tens of thousands" of songs uploaded by Boomy.

In addition, recording giant Universal Music had flagged to all the main streaming platforms that it saw suspicious streaming activity on Boomy tracks.

The report said that the music industry has been grappling with the emergence of AI-generated songs and the deluge of new tracks flooding streaming platforms in recent months.

Spotify also confirmed it had removed some Boomy content, saying, "Artificial streaming is a longstanding, industry-wide issue that Spotify is working to stamp out across our service."

"We are always encouraged when we see our partners exercise vigilance around the monitoring or activity on their platforms," Michael Nash, Universal's chief digital officer, was quoted as saying.

Further, the report stated that the Boomy songs were removed due to suspected "artificial streaming" -- online bots impersonating human listeners in order to inflate audience numbers for specific songs.

Launched two years ago, Boomy lets users select from a variety of styles or descriptors, such as "rap beats" or "rainy nights," to generate a machine-generated track.

Users can then distribute the music to streaming services, where they will earn royalties.

Boomy, based in the US, claims that its users have created over 14 million songs, the report mentioned.

Meanwhile, Spotify has said that it has crossed 515 million monthly active users (MAUs) in Q1 2023, a 22 per cent (year-on-year) increase from 489 MAUs in the last quarter -- its strongest first quarter since going public in 2018.

Premium subscribers grew 15 per cent (year-on-year) to 210 million with better performance across all regions, led by Europe and Latin America.

--IANS

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