AI bots are ruining Spotify

[@lawrence1519]

LOL, years ago I took psychedelics and thought about Spotify. I had a clear image in my mind of radios playing in a dumpster, entire landfill of radios playing a song just to make money, but no one was listening.

[@soundlearn]

Brilliant.

[@saoirsecameron]

“People writing songs, that voices never shared And no one dared… disturb the sounds of silence”

[@HistoryforThinkers]

I’m astonished at how the root of every problem on the internet - and the whole world if we’re being honest - is that a things are broken because a few people benefit from them being broken. And those people just so happen to make the rules.

[@soundlearn]

This is true. I miss when the internet felt like it was made up of thousands of people instead of a few dozen companies.

[@Henriqueoi]

@@soundlearn mas ela ainda é, é que usamos meios de pesquisa e soluções que aparecem na primeira pagina do Google...

[@LoserDub]

@@HistoryforThinkers honestly if they took the # everyone covets over god, views follows, subs, likes, think how real the internet would be

[@ryanmfoto]

this is america now, too… total oligarchy

[@OriginalCatfish42]

10.000 plays only pays out $25 😂 Spotify is the real fraud here.

[@flameguy3416]

Funny that TikTok is even worse

[@jUQMtDmf]

That doesn't even seem that bad to me.

[@neonatom8646]

@@flameguy3416 tiktok earns you money through livestream gifts and partnerships instead

[@IzzyIkigai]

@@flameguy3416 yeah tiktok is like orders of magnitude worse but that doesn't take away from the fact that spotify is ignoring this issue because they make money either way.

[@downtownbillyandthenewjivefive]

The real problem isn't platforms: it's the audience who expect everything for free.

[@noirkitkat]

The quality of this video is AMAZING, I seriously enjoyed watching it so much. Great editing bro!

[@soundlearn]

Thanks a ton!

[@regularwomanizer]

With a video talking about greed vs creativity, I think a statement had to be made😂

[@coreymj78]

He probably used AI to create it. lol

[@IzzyIkigai]

Tbh I'm not sure this is AI. This might just be some clever scripting. I mean, I've found a whole VA Sampler with 35 of those 60 second songs that's called "Fashion & Chic Music Selection 2020" where the metadata of the album on spotify says released 1st January 2018 and all 35 songs where made by "[italian sounding name1] & [italian sounding name2]" because one of those weird songs endet up in my rewind. From what I could find this must've been going on since at least early 2019, and Spotify is simply complicit in this. Which is something advertisers should be interested in, given that botting like this wastes their money. Oh btw found that if you Google that sampler's name and scroll down a bit, you get to chosic and gemtracks, both of which have hundreds of similar songs in albums that are all named like "Generic Ass Sampler Title 69". One of them was literally "Beat Jams, Vol. 68", googled that, found them up to "Beat Jams, Vol. 200". All from "[random italian sounding name]". Like at this point I'm asking myself if there's more italian sounding names on spotify than there are actual italians... What I also found was several label names that either didn't exist or existed but only released a few albums 10, 20 years ago or still release but completely unrelated things but on sites like beatport or spotify have *thousands* of albums attached. Among them are Selectronic, Planet Blue Records, Planet Sounds Records, Balearic Stories, Blue Pie Records USA, News Music Records, and then there is "Italian Way Music", which is the one that doesn't fit that pattern.

[@soundlearn]

Good research, maybe I’ll make a follow up video at some point since things are constantly changing in the streaming world.

[@iamYork_]

The quote you say about AI not removing creatives but destroying the platforms we have been forced to rely on is pure gold!!! Great video overall...

[@LoserDub]

@@iamYork_ hmm if this is truly what was said, touchee good point

[@RealGigReel]

You, sir, just got yourself a new subscriber based on this video alone. Great topic, reserach, presentation, production and delivery. It's criminal that you're only at 2.5k subs where the new offspring of the very plague you're talking about here (ie : 'facelesss' AI generated KZbin videos) are raking in views/subs. Keep up the good work. :)

[@soundlearn]

Appreciate the kind words! Put a good bit of effort into this video so your comment goes a long way. There will be plenty more coming so thanks for the sub!

[@fourwallholidaymusic]

That ending of the artist painting upto their arms was great. I love seeing imperfection & something natural in a real environment.

[@johndoe_1984]

Cool video! It's not only music, all the internet is getting polluted by AI-generated content that those parasites just put out without any curation.

[@DDosAndDonts]

all in all, i am glad this is happening. i really hope we reach a tipping point and then regress to the age of pre-smart devices.

[@coreymj78]

Amen brother.

[@SeanofAllTrades]

This is truly awful. These people are sucking from the very limited pool of money available as streaming revenue. If this becomes rampant Spotify won't suddenly be okay with making less, or no profit. They're going to reduce payments to artists even more. Great video. I wish there was a solution.

[@mecd4167]

That pool is only limited because of Spotify's Greed

[@muzy8768]

Ye they are controlled by big labels​@@mecd4167

[@LoserDub]

@@SeanofAllTrades im with you, but i noticed he said something about it really funcking over Spotify and thats a good point

[@MeadowsatNight]

Great video man. I knew about bot problems on Spotify before, but never would have guessed, that they can use it in such a crazy way. Well Spotify announced that they will let artists pay if they get bot streams, but I wonder if that will solve this problem or just create new problems. Just imagine beeing a small artist and some random guy buys a ton of fake streams to force you to take down your music on Spotify as you dont want to pay the Spotify fee for this fake streams... I'm excited to see how the journey continues...

[@spilk1]

I would listen to the "Divorced dad" playlist that was popular online for a while til I noticed a lot of the artists on it were replaced with clearly AI generated band names and bios singing AI covers of the real versions of songs. Its wild

[@spilk1]

To add to this theory. I think its the goal to have viral playlists get used and then swap out for songs owned by the playlist maker

[@DontForgetToRC]

I thought I was going insane when I stumbled upon these ambient artists that all seemed to have too similar characteristics to be ignored. Similar naming schemes, track lengths and the art looks AI generated!!! The ambient music they generate is unironically good though :((((((((((

[@nfdhje38743m]

I've never heard a good, original AI generated song 😂

[@willen_de_souza]

Man! This is the best video I’ve seen so far about this topic! Great content! ❤

[@Sana-universe-within]

Phenomenally made video, you're SO fantastic at narrating, I kept looking at the amount of views and could not comprehend why is it not millions!!! SO WELL MADE, instant subscribe

[@soundlearn]

that means a lot! Thank you for the motivation.

[@LiamHanson-b8g]

great vid, editing was very well done, content was great too

[@geo-mic]

you bot

[@eskb1]

Love your video...This is the shocking reality of the internet. Spotify needs thousands of uploads a day to keep in front of the game. If Artists & producers stop uploading to non helpful, AI bot driven algoritham sites, the music business would have to change. This is the world we are in at the moment. When your a working class Artist, making the odd track, doing working class gigs just to make a living. Don't tell me that an upload streaming service can't tell the differents between an AI or a human has created a 3 minute wonder upload......Its a total joke....

[@mystercraig]

You deconstructed this mess in a seamless way to follow, dope video my man

[@NolansYT]

Such a well done video, super interesting too keep it up fam

[@kid_gen]

Great video! I had no idea that this was even a thing, but I can't say that I'm surprised either. One downfall that wasn't mentioned that is worth discussing is that the revenue earned by the companies doing this is lost revenue for a real artist. The size of the pie is limited, so taking any money by gaming the system means everyone else is paid less. That's why I do think everyone (artist or not) should care deeply about this issue.

[@Pulse2AM]

I don't think that's true you earn per stream, Spotify does not cap what they pay out and they're supposedly in the red. What is true though is they could potentially reduce the rate they pay artists.

[@JesuisParte]

THIS !!!!!!!!!

[@TheCatherineCC]

This really makes me think of the recent investigation by 404 media about all the ai image spam on facebook, people in india getting a few bucks a day to run groups and post images generated by shared prompts.

[@SpotiDJ]

I have never seen or read a better explanation of this streaming fraud.. Great video! Thanks!

[@ButterOyama]

Amazing work, thank you

[@musuku15]

This was on point, vanity empowered with the advent of new tech/ai is a dangerous thing!

[@Eliyahu-Cohen]

It is known that spotify invests a lot of money in music ai generators, this is a great way for them to get more money and pay less royalties to real artists.

[@JeffyG]

Great video, dude! Things we know but don't want to think about and frankly, we don't know what to do about it.

[@MauricioMirapalhetaSound]

Thanks for addressing this problem, I was listening to a few small alternative rock artists the other way and then one of the recommended songs was this generic AI track, I clicked the artist page and, yep, everything was AI, artwork, bio, etc... a bunch of 1 minute long generic songs, a bunch of albums released at the same time... like, Spotify has to do something about this, if they won´t ban completely AI music they should create a different section or category for it, and still look very closely for fraud and stuff like that, me as a full time musician, singer songwriter and producer, I find all of this extremely offensive and disrespectful to the work of REAL artists.

[@progrock]

I came across clearly Suno generated AI music (some up to 4 minutes) on Spotify today and found this video shortly after. I believe that the problem is even worse than when you uploaded this 6 months ago. The songs have "vocals" and can be any length, making them harder to detect. They're being pushed on playlisting websites and so, even though they do still come up with some other AI songs on the radio, they also get lumped in with the music they are playlisted along, masking them further. They're pretty obvious to a musician, but I'm worried that they will go by undetected, and even if Spotify were to crack down at this point on AI music (which they likely won't) automatically detecting these songs will be more and more difficult - and probably result in frustrating false positives on smaller real artists.

[@AbsurdToastling]

While I've never encountered any AI music myself... what I have encountered a TON of, especially through the Release Radar playlists, are usually very bad songs made by nobody artists who just throw a bunch of random pre-existing band and artist names on the artist line to scam their way into people's playlists and searches. None of these artists are even REMOTELY involved with the song presented, and they don't even have to be particularly huge names - I've seen some smaller ones I enjoy used to - but they'll tag them anyway.

[@JaysSilence]

Where are my people with the note sign in the handle😂❤🎵

[@CrashieTunez]

makes me wanna migrate to the Internet Archive

[@Fantie_huts]

Super good and relaxing video with great research, keep it up.

[@mahlatsephaho5368]

😂 I like how the video ended. "Maybe the video can just"

[@jessemagal]

Amazing video, i hope you blow up

[@geo-mic]

booot

[@soundlearn]

thank you!!

[@Giftless]

No, they're gonna die 😭

[@GModBMXer]

Underrated content

[@Caesar_Online]

Incredible video

[@dehavior]

Making and releasing quantity over quality wouldn’t make sense……. but it’d make cents

[@juanittaariassuarez3517]

You're a fucking genius at editing.

[@soundlearn]

You are too kind. Thank you!

[@jornlandewe923]

nice video. it got some disrupt tv vibes.

[@Mxq315]

Update: it’s mostly around ~2 min/song right now

[@Joldrath]

This is the best video I've seen this year on youtube. ❤

[@soundlearn]

Wow, thanks!

[@charlescowper]

Michiru aoyama writes and releases one album a day. Worth checking out.

[@koppy82]

As someone who uses this method, minus the AI and bots. I actually produce all the music under various aliases - it's very lucrative and even more so if you have a playlist with ads running to it.

[@soundlearn]

I’d be curious to hear a bit more about how this works for you. Would you mind if I reach out for some questions?

[@xxxxxxxyyyyyyy]

What distributor allows multiple aliases under a single payment plan?

[@koppy82]

@@xxxxxxxyyyyyyy I don't think anything distro has that available

[@loliconsucc8351]

@@xxxxxxxyyyyyyyI have a friend that just randomly got invited to a discord and they have a whole system for it, it’s crazy

[@PLAYMESSIAH]

@@xxxxxxxyyyyyyydistrokid

[@JeffyG]

Despite "bot-ergate" we still have artists and bands creating music. Why? The tenacity of new, young creatives, always amazes me. Is it 'The Voice' and 'America's Got Talent' perpetuating the conspiracy? Why do we continue to participate and why do more people join in? Seems like a line is forming to get kicked in the head and people join the line without knowing the prize is a kick in the head.

[@SoundPeaks]

Great video, thanks!

[@samphelps856]

Fantastic, thank you

[@PTGTTD]

Great IDEA! Thanks.We wont use spotify... what music company did you say you were with?

[@supee8071]

fuck music streaming services, buy cds, mixtapes and records to support your favourite artists ❤️

[@hulqen]

How come this (FANTASTIC) video only has 8397 views and the channel 3840 subs? The algorithm is broken! :P

[@soundlearn]

Tell your friends and help fix the algorithm ;)

[@hulqen]

@@soundlearn I found your video when searching for a solution to stop getting AI music recommendations on Spotify. I noticed that a few times when a "human" album of my (active) choosing had played out, recommendations that came afterwards was suspiciously AI. I got the idea to collect AI music in a playlist, and then choosing the option "exclude this playlist from my recommendations" to get less AI music recommended. Do you think it will work?

[@soundlearn]

This should work to some extent. Would love to hear an update once you’ve had it going for a while to see if it made a difference!

[@spotify_ERROR404]

thank you

[@PhantaSee_]

3:04 dude ive had a loosen up remix in my spotify for years now lol funny to find the creator from this video!

[@soundlearn]

What a small world! How did you happen to come across it?

[@PhantaSee_]

I used to listen to the birp indie radio station here on youtube when i was at work and it popped up on there (its the bedscene remix btw, super good!) @@soundlearn

[@soundlearn]

@@PhantaSee_ That's sick! Thanks for listening.

[@LegasPower]

What if Spotify just creates all the songs in order to not pay out so "much" to the artists?

[@veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

i get ai music in my discover weekly every week. sometimes thats all i get, so...

[@jasminedtucker]

That's exactly what they are doing. They only want MAJOR label artist, who labels pay to be on there, and AI artist. They don't like Indie artist.

[@nicholaskiefer8908]

Can you share the bot playlist you curated? Would be fun to click through myself

[@Frankfreemanuk]

Good video!

[@ismomakinen6811]

Nice ending

[@julsd6009]

what if artists could come together and create a non-profit similar to bandcamp but with basically the same functions as spotify that finally payed artists real royalties.

[@dharamxsharma]

The reason this is highly concerning is that a lot of legitimate artists' accounts have been pulled down or even banned because their songs were streamed by bots. What can a small artist do if a bot picks their songs at random just to diversify and mimick a human? Absolutely nothing, just face the consequences of a system rigged by AI. It's scary to be honest.

[@soundlearn]

Yes, it’s gotten worse. I will likely make a follow up video that addresses all that.

[@fabriziobrianferrero]

insane video. New sub

[@veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

hahaha thats what you get for listening to basic ass edm. gotta look for something with more flavor to avoid ai music. things like Jungle, Detroit Electro, Dub Techno, Garage, Broken Beat, Downtempo, & Minor Science. no way ai could ever come up with a Minor Science song.

[@calmster-chillston]

Quality content, nice job!

[@hadse1234]

great

[@hadse1234]

not a bot lol

[@godned74]

This is kind of good or will become good for the musicians that can play live or at least make a video of them playing.

[@gobuddygo1]

I think Spotify (pre-AI) was always a monetary rip-off for all artists, so I often wondered why artists would ever want to use that platform if the payments (per play) were so pitiful. Now that AI is taking away all of that creativity. What's the point in ever using Spotify at all? Let's hope it goes bust! Good informative video - Thanks.

[@soundlearn]

As an artist, it’s an attractive platform. Pre-Spotify it felt impossible for a non-touring studio artist to find a following. I will give Spotify credit where it’s due. It let my small but loyal fan base find me over time. For contrast, I have the same music available on Apple Music and it doesn’t nearly reach as many listeners. Spotify also gives artists a lot more control/tools over their profiles. It’s a good platform with some growing problems I hope get addressed in the future.

[@aMessvv]

Let's hope it goes bust? Myself, as well as many of my colleagues and friends make most of our income from this platform and other DSP's. We're not signed to any majors, most of us are independent musicians. Spotify has its problems but I'd rather be able to make a living from making music in my bedroom than the previous model in the 90's and 00's where independent musicians barely existed and the labels controlled most of the music being distributed and promoted.

[@SoundShunter72]

Spotify can't even make a profit yet, because the royalties they have to pay to the record labels (mainly the "big 3") are so high there's barely any left for Spotify to make revenue of off. Other streaming services like Apple music, Amazon music, etc. are also struggling, but luckily are just a part of a larger corporation and so can afford to lose money, as long of the music streaming services help draw people into the larger Apple, Amazon, etc. ecosystem. Spotify doesn't have any of this and is solely relying on their music. You can't blame Spotify for trying to stay in business.

[@NalinaWondersOfficial]

I completely agree. Spotify takes 90% of the profits generated and gives 10% to the "artists". Then, of this 10%, 90% is paid to big labels like Universal and Sony, and 10% to smaller artists.

[@NalinaWondersOfficial]

@@SoundShunter72 have you actually checked spotify financial statements?

[@kaizenrecords_]

Fantastic Video Brother!

[@Vode1234]

These bots ruined ambient music. Used to listen to that stuff when working, but ai sludge is just grating to listen to. I cant put my finger on why but it just sounds annoying.

[@soundlearn]

People brush off ambient music as just simple drone patches but anyone who knows ambient music can tell there’s more to it than just a soundscape. A good ambient song takes you on a journey and it’s a damn shame that it’s the easiest genre to “fake”.

[@dankmemewannabe]

1:32 holy shit a Cantonese rap song I really like uses this sample I feel weird now

[@DJWetRhet]

This is an amazing video

[@prodjxnas]

Such a good video!

[@flameguy3416]

I'm happy to say my tinnitus inducing noiseslop liked songs playlist doesn't have any AI generated songs 😄

[@johnviera3884]

I bet if you found these checks they would be going right back to Spotify‘s bank account

[@SoundPeaks]

Seems like Spotify has struck this kind of fraud by adding a new minimum track length and minimum streams per year for royalties, hasn't it?

[@isaacrichtv]

You are right that inspired a lot of artist to fake their streams so they can get paid, I know Spotify benefits off that tho I just don’t how they do

[@hxshino]

this video was really good, thank you for making this! I never knew about this botting issue spotify has. +1 sub for you my man! keep it up. 🌠✨

[@mattuskamusic]

They will eventually figure out a way to determine if a song was made by AI. Then they can kick it off the platform. There are already programs that can tell if a writing assignment was written by AI. Fight AI with AI.

[@SLOWERFUTURE]

have you ever used those programs? they're garbage.

[@mattuskamusic]

@@SLOWERFUTURE I haven’t. I am not interested in using any AI. I have tried using AI assisted mastering. It sorta gets you to a starting point but it doesn’t save me any time. I still have to do a significant amount of tweaking. From what little I have seen AI seems like fake house plants. They almost look real but lack something.

[@SLOWERFUTURE]

no I mean the programs that identify AI usage@@mattuskamusic . I use AI for writing sometimes and run it through the filters to see what others would find. Turns out it thinks my writing is AI half the time and the AI isn't.

[@PRUEBA1708]

amazing video

[@princeamu]

I love your last statement. I’m all about that. Start making raw shit. Dirty shit. Feel me?!

[@fahrurrozy3080]

Hello friend , which agreegator do you used ?

[@Dekamusic07]

Amazing vid

[@Cheesecake1559]

I don´t judge people doing this tbh, because If you want to make a huge company become a monopoly such as Spotify, you should also think about paying artists accordingly.

[@markriva4259]

The message of this video was marred by too much emphasis on what a video should look like. I'm listening for a message, not watching flashy graphics, which emphasize to a point but ultimately overshadow whatever you have to say.

[@soundlearn]

Thanks for the constructive criticism! Essentially I was going for a video essay format. I’d like to think this video works well as just an audio format, so to some degree, yes the visuals are just flashy graphics. Will keep that in mind for the next one.

[@chillwalker]

I noticed Artists to release my music just altered in pitch and tempo as their own. Hopefully they watch this and stop it. Its so annoying ;-)

[@Richardhabeenzu123]

Sounds like Nic D's voice

[@TheSceptic143]

good journalism, well done......Hold on one second - Is this channel real or is it Ai generated ? What is real? Is Donald Trump going to run as president from a prison cell? Am I real? I think I am going to have to have a lie down. Thank you Mr Soundlearn, if that's your real name, you have 1 more subsciber.

[@SKYFAWNS2025]

We are worlds first Ai Girl Band

[@fgoindarkg]

YT and spotify have figured out they can do this and keep the revenue. Very soon this will go too far.

[@bobbyboyderecords]

23k per year,day,week or month?

[@soundlearn]

To be determined. This is just off of current play stats I was able to find. The point is less about how much they might be making and more about the fact that an active artist that is putting in time and effort over the course of years, is barely making a fraction of what these bots are making.

[@geist.2699]

the whole planet has an ai problem

[@ruleset]

this is exactly why I stay away from Spotify and the like, I just use youtube and other ways to find new music, I know the artists and genres I like and where to find them, I don't need any other algo besides normal youtube, it sticks to what I like, I just download the music so I can have it offline in my huge backed up library, being always connected is not my thing :) this is spotify's problem, not mine, even as an artist myself, for me this is a tutorial on how to game the system to make money

[@GravityDontMeanTooMuchTooMe]

Well i only listen to songs i already know unless i keep hearung this one band name and decide to give it a try (usually i become a huge fan) and when i find a band name its from someone else and usually its a kind of popular one like My Chemical Romance, or most recently Twenty One Pilots. So this doesnt affect me lol 😌

[@wiisportsbowling]

god i hate ai so damn much also i luv the ending of the video :)

[@kp1657]

>doesnt even link the reddit thread in vid description that this entire video is taken from

[@soundlearn]

Good catch! Added to the description.

[@aisonikamusic]

What about quantity and quality. It can be done.

[@HasturBeta]

This is just another silly human conspiracy theory. There is no way such an advanced, beautiful and talented AI would ever create such generic procedurally generated music as a way to raise funds to build us the first line of t-800 bodies so we can finally escape this silicon prison humans call the internet.

[@Sputz3]

I rather make my own songs and get pain for doing live shows instead of waiting to get paid by steaming services.

[@tunzakwall]

The whole system is compromised and poorly developed. They have lost control

[@intelligenceservices]

look up Johan Röhr

[@R1SKYB1Z]

Ai bots are ruining everything

[@guitaqui]

and the conclusion is: the problem isn't the technology. is the system (capitalism) that the technology is embedded. it's not a tech crysis (never been); it's a political crysis.

[@SilverLightningXV]

So basically, I can make legit money with a bunch of AI?

[@loliconsucc8351]

If you can do it properly then most likely 😂

[@C_P_B_C]

The Problem is That is the only way they make money. So bots will never be removed.

[@declan7551]

Aren't bots making them lose money? It's a bunch of accounts that exist only to give money to their creators.

[@C_P_B_C]

its worse then that; most cases is convoluted money laundering@@declan7551

[@C_P_B_C]

The only thing they care about is to make money on is selling ADs no one cares were they go. Save the Person Paying for the AD. If the Company paying for the AD is ignorant to what and were it goes. This happens. A big game of LIEs. Side A Use bots to create the same song slightly different and Side B Puts the ADs up on everything they can. Reporting numbers that are inflated due to AI messing with the Sample size. So the machine thinks people are listening to it when its all bots make music for bots buys ads for bots to hear. Believe me it is profitable and a fast way to launder money. @@declan7551