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Spotify Publishes AI-Generated Songs From Dead Artists Without Permission (404media.co)

(Monday July 21, 2025 @11:30PM (BeauHD) from the back-from-the-dead dept.)


Spotify was [1]found publishing AI-generated songs on the official pages of deceased artists like Blaze Foley and Guy Clark -- without permission from their estates or labels. The tracks, flagged for deceptive content and now removed, were uploaded via TikTok's SoundOn distribution platform. "We've flagged the issue to SoundOn, the distributor of the content in question, and it has been removed for violating our Deceptive Content policy," a Spotify spokesperson told 404 Media. From the report:

> McDonald, who decided to originally upload Foley's music to Spotify in order to share it with more people, told me he never thought that an AI-generated track could appear on Foley's page without his permission. "It's harmful to Blaze's standing that this happened," he said. "It's kind of surprising that Spotify doesn't have a security fix for this type of action, and I think the responsibility is all on Spotify. They could fix this problem. One of their talented software engineers could stop this fraudulent practice in its tracks, if they had the will to do so. And I think they should take that responsibility and do something quickly."

>

> McDonald's suggested fix is not allowing any track to appear on an artist's official Spotify page without allowing the page owner to sign off on it first. "Any real Blaze fan would know, I think, pretty instantly, that this is not Blaze or a Blaze recording," he said. "Then the harm is that the people who don't know Blaze go to the site thinking, maybe this is part of Blaze, when clearly it's not. So again, I think Spotify could easily change some practices. I'm not an engineer, but I think it's pretty easy to stop this from happening in the future."



[1] https://www.404media.co/spotify-publishes-ai-generated-songs-from-dead-artists-without-permission/



Scummy Company is Scummy.... (Score:4, Insightful)

by SeaFox ( 739806 )

Film at 11.

I doubt this is new (Score:2)

by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 )

I recall probly about 2015 sitting around tuning in playlists on YouTube for my Ladyfriend, Buble and Adele and and if you let it play for an hour, it subtly sounded different.. like they were sung by someone else, cover versions crafted so close to the original... who do you complain to ffs... like that is straight up counterfeit.

Spot-i-FRY (Score:1)

by p51d007 ( 656414 )

I've started using youtube music more and more than spotify lately.

don't think this can be coded (Score:1)

by OppMan29 ( 1270518 )

IA would start flagging real people that sound like other real people, if you just compare sound.

Go back further (Score:2)

by Mspangler ( 770054 )

What kind of concerto grosso could an AI do? PDQ Bach passed away, is there no successor?

"Nature abhors a Vacuum"

-- Brian Behlendorf on OSS (Open Sources, 1999 O'Reilly and Associates)