What happened

Spotify disclosed that during the period marked by the rise of generative AI tools, it identified and eliminated over 75 million tracks categorised as spam or fraudulent.

According to the company, these tracks often resulted from "mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, and artificially short tracks," designed to game the platform's payout system. 

The scale of the abuse has diverted royalties from authentic artists, diluted the quality of music on the service and degraded the experience of listeners.

Why it happened

With AI tools making it easier for anyone to generate vast amounts of content quickly, bad actors and content farms flooded Spotify with low-effort AI music designed to deceive listeners and game streaming royalties, harming creators who rely on honest engagement. 

The firm's existing anti-spam measures became steadily less effective as the volume and nature of the offending content multiplied.

The problem prompted Spotify to strengthen its AI defences, specifically by introducing a new impersonation policy and spam filtering system, and helping develop a new standard for AI disclosures in music credits.

What it means

The removal of 75 million AI spam tracks from Spotify should positively affect artist royalty payments by reducing the dilution of the royalty pool caused by fake, low-quality, or artificially generated streams. 

The crackdown should also help safeguard the reputation of artists and others from those using AI to abuse the platform, and to maintain trust in Spotify's platform by keeping music offerings authentic and high-quality.