Does the latest track by your favorite singer sound slightly off? You might be right. Fraudulent tracks generated by artificial intelligence (AI) area increasingly appearing in artists’ own profiles on streaming platforms, presented as their original work.
British folk musician Emily Portman got a shock in July when she received a message from a fan congratulating her on her new album — even though she had not released one since 2022.
That is when she discovered Orca on numerous streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music.
Photo: AFP
The titles of the songs resembled something she might have created herself, but “very quickly I recognized it was AI-produced music,” she said.
The AI behind Orca was “trained” on her previous albums, mimicking her folk-inspired instrumentation and lyrics, the independent artist said.
“I just felt really uncomfortable and disturbed that people could be going to my profile ... and then think: ‘Wow, what’s this?” she said.
People were fooled, despite the “pristine perfection” of the vocals and “vacuous lyrics,” she said.
The musician could not identify the perpetrators of the fraud, but believes she knows how they operate.
Scammers claiming to be artists approach distribution companies, which then upload the music online without any identity checks, she said.
On the other side of the world, Australian musician Paul Bender also discovered from early this year that four “bizarrely bad” AI-generated songs had been added to the profiles of his band, The Sweet Enoughs.
The streaming industry had not kept pace with security measures, such as two-factor authentication now widely used in other sectors, he said.
“You just say: ‘Yes that’s me’ ... and upload a song to whoever’s profile,” he said.
“It’s the easiest scam in the world,” he added.
After an Instagram discussion, Bender, who is also the bassist for the Grammy-nominated band Hiatus Kaiyote, received hundreds of messages from artists and music fans.
He compiled a list of numerous suspect albums, particularly in the catalogues of deceased artists, such as the experimental Scottish musician Sophie, who died in 2021.
About 24,000 people signed a petition Bender launched on change.org, including rapper and singer-songwriter Anderson .Paak and singer Willow Smith, urging platforms to step up security.
AI-powered music generators such as Suno and Udio have become increasingly refined.
Almost all listeners are now unable to distinguish AI-generated tracks from the real thing, an Ipsos study for the French platform Deezer said last month.
This has driven success for bands solely created by AI, such as The Velvet Sundown, which has garnered 1 million subscribers on Spotify, but also led to a rise in fraudulent activity.
“The reason that music was uploaded under her [Portman’s] name was essentially to make sure that they could gain royalties from [it],” Dougie Brown of the industry representative UK Music said.
Revenues on the platforms are generally low, but add up thanks to bots that multiply listening streams 10-fold, he said.
Portman and Bender, who have not taken legal action, asked the various platforms to remove the offending tracks — a process that took between 24 hours and eight weeks.
Some countries and states have legislation to protect artists against imitation, particularly in California.
In others, including the UK, limited copyright leaves artists vulnerable, Philip Morris of the Musicians’ Union said.
Portman’s case showed how AI-generated music was now so sophisticated it could actually be used “to impersonate the original work of a real artist,” he said.
Accused of a lack of transparency, Spotify recently announced measures to make the platform more reliable and transparent.
Like its competitor Apple Music, it says it is working upstream with distributors to better detect fraud.
“Across the music industry, AI is accelerating existing problems like spam, fraud, and deceptive content,” it said.
Despite her concerns about potential UK legislation that artists say will damage their interests, and fraudsters making a mockery of the “beauty of the creative process,” Portman is working on a new album.
“The album that I’m making, it’s costing a lot of money ... but for me it’s all about those human connections, creativity and teaming up with other amazing creatives,” she said.
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