When your favorite band’s new song is an AI fake : NPR

This is not how Los Angeles musician Luke Temple expected to start his Monday.

Temple was the frontman of an indie rock band. That's the magicwho hasn't released music since 2015, a fact that has baffled the barrage of messages hitting his inbox.

“I woke up to DMs on Instagram saying, 'Apparently We Go Magic released a new track here?' Of course it’s not like you,” Temple said. “Then I realized it was on Spotify, Tidal, YouTube, all the streaming platforms.”

A song that has nothing in common with the band's psychedelic airy song. sound synthesizers and swirling guitars are the work of artificial intelligence.

The song, called “Water Spring Mountain”, is accompanied by an illustration of a waterfall. It looks like this is also a creation of AI.

Welcome to being a music artist in 2025 when streaming platforms become popular. bombardment AI-generated spam, and AI scammers try to capitalize on the reputation of dormant bands or even dead artists to make a quick buck.

Earlier this year, a song created by artificial intelligence was loaded to the page of Uncle Tupelo, Wilco singer Jeff Tweedy's former band. Same happened electro-pop singer Sophie, who died in 2021. And country music singer Blaze Foley, who died in 1989, had her Spotify page vandalized by AI songs.

“This is by no means a new problem,” said Charlie Keefer, who heads global digital strategy for the distribution arm of Secretly Canadian, the label that released Here We Go Magic. “But this problem is likely to become increasingly widespread without fixes from both plug and play distributors and DSPs,” he said, referring to digital service providers such as Spotify.

Targeting idle groups with AI songs to 'raise some pennies'

Most AI songs that imitate real artists are far from convincing.

The AI ​​track, which imitates Here We Go Magic, begins with an acoustic guitar that sounds like a computer imitating pop rock over the lyrics, “I know how to whisper your melody in the wind,” which won't fool any fan of Temple's music.

But if the motivation is to earn some trivial amount of money, it might be possible.

Recording artists, of course, will be quick to tell you that you'll have to replicate these tactics on an industrial scale to ever make a living.

Temple says that if the strategy is to target bands and artists who haven't released music in years, AI scammers could likely do this quite often before getting caught.

“It makes sense to go after a group like us because who's to say we even check or pay attention,” Temple said. “It looks like they might be able to do this with small groups or sleeping groups to cast a really wide net and pick up a few pennies and hope no one notices.”

When NPR reached out to Spotify about the AI ​​song, a company spokesperson said it would soon be removed from the Here We Go Magic artist's profile.

The spokesperson pointed to Spotify's new AI protections for artists and music producers, which include increased controls on AI imitators, like in this case.

The platform acknowledges that it is struggling with a constant stream of garbage in the field of AI. Spotify claims to have remote 75 million “spam” tracks from the platform last year alone.

“Because music moves through a complex supply chain, attackers sometimes exploit holes to push incorrect content into artist profiles,” a Spotify spokesperson told NPR.

Tidal confirmed to NPR that it removed the song, saying it reflected a broader problem facing music services.

“All platforms are facing an influx of AI tracks sent through third-party distributors. “We are working on more effective ways to identify, label and, if necessary, remove AI content,” a Tidal spokesperson said.

YouTube did not respond to requests for comment.

A Spotify representative noted that the platform recently launched a tool that allows artists to report conflicting releases before songs go live.

But like all online scams and spam, it's a game of cat and mouse, now enhanced by artificial intelligence tools.

Part of the problem is that music labels and artists don't upload songs directly to platforms like Spotify.

Instead, independent distribution services like DistroKid and TuneCore act as intermediaries, often submitting songs to streaming services without any authentication process.

Weak rules are abused by people using services such as Sound and audiowhere anyone can create an AI song in seconds that attempts to imitate a real artist. As more AI companies develop similar AI music generators to stay competitive, the ability to instantly create a song using AI will be in even more hands.

Los Angeles-based musician Temple said it's not just spam AI songs that cost the band a fraction of a penny with every performance, but shameless identity theft that is a complete travesty.

“It’s so predatory and so terrible,” he said. “The principle is so terrible. We worked late for ten years and made almost no money.”