Scammers are generating songs with AI and getting them filed under genuine artists' names on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and other services, Engadget reports, building on an investigation by 404 Media. Because the track appears on the real act's profile, the royalties go to whoever uploaded it, and a borrowed name and audience earn far more than anonymous AI filler would.
404 Media proved how little it takes by trying it with the Brooklyn band Lathe of Heaven: a song made in a tool like Suno or Udio, AI cover art, a DistroKid account and a false claim to be the band. Once uploaded, the song turned up across the major services as if it were a new release from the band, and neither the distributor nor the streaming platforms noticed anything wrong. 404 Media's reporter said the whole process took about five minutes and would work against big stars as easily as small bands. The band's singer said making music you know is your own is one of the last reasons to do it, and that it was disheartening that anyone could damage their name with junk and that services allow it.
Small acts, dead artists and profiles nobody manages are most exposed, and Spotify admitted as much to 404 Media. The music group Odette Child has been tracking cases since July and has logged more than 300 fake songs under names from Taylor Swift to late jazz players; it says the platforms are not chasing the best fix. The loophole predates generative AI, but AI changes the scale: faking one song by hand is different from producing and uploading hundreds a day. Estimates put AI uploads to Spotify at around 50,000 a day. Big names usually have teams watching their pages, which is why smaller acts are hit hardest.
Spotify says artist identity is a top priority and that it is working with distributors to stop bad releases at source; a tool letting artists approve releases before they go live has been in limited beta since March. Amazon Music said it keeps improving detection. Engadget notes that the services have not been idle, pointing to Spotify's badge confirming music is not AI-made and a spam filter aimed at mass uploads and duplicates, but says those steps have not closed the gap.
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