Sony Music has asked streaming services to take down more than 135,000 tracks it says fraudsters made with generative AI to pass as its own artists. The figure came from Dennis Kooker, who runs Sony's global digital business, at the launch of the IFPI's Global Music Report on March 18, as reported by the BBC and relayed by Music Business Worldwide.
Artists said to be imitated include Beyoncé, Queen and Harry Styles, with Bad Bunny, Miley Cyrus and Mark Ronson probably affected too. Sony believes its tally is only part of what has been uploaded. About 60,000 of the flagged songs date from March 2025 onward, and a year ago it had told the UK government's AI and copyright consultation about more than 75,000.
Kooker argued the fakes do real commercial damage, can hurt a release campaign or an artist's reputation, and cluster around moments when an artist is actively promoting music. He praised Deezer, which says it tags about a third of submitted songs as AI-made, as an imperfect but transparent example, and said labelling should not be optional because fans otherwise cannot tell genuine human work from unauthorised AI copies. Deezer has patented its detector, reports that more than 60,000 fully AI tracks now reach it every day, and plans to license the tool to the rest of the industry.
IFPI chief Victoria Oakley said AI has greatly accelerated streaming fraud, in which fake artists' songs are uploaded and their plays inflated to draw royalties. The industry privately thinks up to 10% of streaming content could be fraudulent, and she called on platforms to detect AI or fake music at the point of upload, saying it would be simple to fix and that labelling is the next big challenge. She also said governments are struggling to protect creators while encouraging innovation, and welcomed the UK's decision to pause and rethink its copyright plans. The report itself put global recorded music revenue up 6.4% in 2025 to $31.7 billion, an eleventh straight year of growth, and named AI and streaming fraud as the two themes shaping what comes next.
Sony stands apart from Universal and Warner, which have settled with Udio and, in Warner's case, Suno. It sued both companies in 2024 alongside the other majors and has not settled with either. Its parent Sony Group has also been reported by Nikkei Asia to be developing technology to trace which songs appear inside AI-generated music, which could help writers claim payment when their work is used without permission.
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