In the last few hours, news about it has been spreading Spotify has removed several thousand songs from its catalog, which as a common denominator were composed by a generative model of artificial intelligence.. In some, if not most, access to said information suggests that the reason for banning said songs is precisely because the one mentioned in the credits is the work of artificial intelligence. An approach that naturally leads to an interesting conversation about the legitimacy of such a measure.

The problem is that like many other occasions a tendentious and misleading headline is more likely than one that informs the real circumstances, although in reality this approach has neither a head nor a heel. And the point is, as I stated earlier, what reason can Spotify use to remove AI-generated tracks if they don’t contain plagiarism by playing snippets of the music used to train them (and they don’t)? We can comment on their artistic quality, what they contribute or don’t contribute, how they can influence the future of music, and more, but these elements do not justify exclusion from the platform.

So does it appear that Spotify has decided to start a crusade against artificial intelligence? It doesn’t seem very likely, as in fact the company has already tested this technology for other purposes in the past. The answer is no, the real reason why the streaming service did this cleanup has a much simpler reason that absolutely everyone can understand, and that is that like any other company, Spotify does not like to cheat.

For the true explanation of what’s going on, The Next Web did an interesting article on the matter that makes it clear what really happened and that it’s something we’ve seen in the past. If you are well-versed with the platform, you know for sure Replay Bot Farm Cheat Method. Otherwise, I will schematically explain what it consists of:

1. As such, the “artist” registers on the platform and uploads his tracks.
2. A bot farm with premium accounts reproduces these compositions on a 24/7 service.
3. When it comes time to charge for reproductions of their songs, the “artist” will receive an economic amount far greater than the cost of the bot farm and their premium accounts.

As I said earlier, Spotify has suffered from this type of fraud in the past, but This is where the appearance of these AI models capable of generating music in seconds represents a big change, because creating not just one song, but a large number is now within everyone’s reach. In other words, the number of potential fraudsters using this technique has increased by several orders of magnitude, which is why Spotify is obliged to improve its detection systems for this type of technique.

To summarize, what actually happened is this Spotify has removed thousands of AI-generated tracks used in this fraudulent scheme. And yes, it is true that in an emergency response to what happened, the platform blocked the uploading of music generated by services like Boomy, but many of these “half-hearted” reports do not report that said function was restored shortly after.

The massive reproduction of these compositions on bot farms does not only affect Spotify accounts, it may also affect music recommendation features service because its algorithms can infer, based on the high volume of plays, that these songs are much more recommended than they actually are. So for the company to go after this content as well as the bot farms that reproduce it is good news and very understandable.