Jason Moran, a jazz composer and pianist, received a call from friend Burniss Earl Travis about a new record on Spotify under his name that he did not create. Moran does not use Spotify or put his music on the platform, preferring Bandcamp, but found an artist profile on Spotify with his name, populated with albums from Blue Note Records, including a new EP titled 'For You' with a Japanese anime-style cover. The music on the EP was indie pop, not resembling Moran's style, and did not feature a piano player, leading Moran to set out to get the fake album taken down. Moran is among a growing number of musicians targeted by AI bots masquerading as real artists on streaming platforms, including jazz musicians, indie rock artists, and rapper Drake.
Spotify acknowledged the problem and the extent of AI slop on its platform, revealing in September it had removed over 75 million spammy tracks in the previous 12 months. The company also said it was strengthening protections for musicians, including stronger rules around impersonation. Last month, Spotify announced in a blogpost it was working on a new tool to give artists more control over what shows up under their name, with protecting artist identity as a top priority. The tool would let artists review and approve or decline releases before they go live on the platform. A Spotify spokesperson said the company employs safeguards including detection systems, human review, and reporting processes, and is the only streaming service offering such a tool.
Smith told Hay the flagging was a mistake due to improper rights for samples.
This fraud occurs against a backdrop of significant revenue in the music industry. Global recorded music revenue reached US$29.6 billion in 2024, with the streaming economy exceeding US$20 billion in revenue for the first time that year. Streaming fraud involves using bots or streaming farms to artificially inflate streaming numbers, diverting billions from the royalty pool. AI technology has revolutionized streaming fraud by enabling fraudsters to evade detection, with fraudsters now using AI song generators to flood platforms with millions of fake songs, streaming each a few thousand times to avoid suspicion. Deezer estimates that 18 percent of content uploaded daily is AI-generated.
A case study illustrates the scale of such schemes. Michael Smith allegedly extracted more than US$10 million in royalties by uploading hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and using bots. Smith has been charged with wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy, with prosecutors saying this is the first criminal case of its kind they have handled. Smith used hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and billions of streams across multiple platforms with thousands of bot accounts, claiming more than $10 million in royalty payments over several years. Smith operated up to 10,000 active bot accounts at points.
In a February email, Smith claimed his music generated over 4 billion streams and $12 million in royalties since 2019.
Smith partnered with the CEO of an unnamed AI music company starting in or around 2018, who supplied tracks in exchange for metadata and a revenue cut. Other legal actions show this is not an isolated issue. A man from North Carolina, USA, has pleaded guilty to defrauding music services of millions of dollars by flooding them with thousands of AI-generated songs and artificially increasing streams, and a man in Denmark was sentenced to 18 months for fraudulently profiting from music streaming royalties earlier this year.
Legitimate artists face direct impacts from such fraud. Mike Smith and Jonathan Hay were musicians collaborating on a jazz album in 2017, releasing an album called 'Jazz' in fall 2017 and a deluxe version in January 2018. Jazz (Deluxe) hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart but then disappeared from the ranking. Hay noticed listeners were concentrated in far-flung places like Vietnam and received notices from distributors for streaming fraud.
Music streaming platforms forbid artificially inflating streams and have taken steps to clamp down on it, as seen in Spotify's actions. Key unknowns remain, including the effectiveness of Spotify's current detection systems and the new artist control tool in preventing AI-generated impersonations, the total financial impact of AI-generated streaming fraud on the global music industry and legitimate artists, and whether there are any ongoing investigations or legal actions against other individuals involved in similar AI music fraud schemes beyond Michael Smith and the North Carolina man.