The CEO of music streaming service Spotify claims that he has no plans to remove all AI-generated content from the platform.
Earlier this year, the platform removed a song that used AI to replace the sounds of Drake and The Weeknd.
Daniel Ek told the BBC that AI could be used to make music, but it shouldn’t be used to pretend to be human artists without their permission.
It was likely to be talked about for “many, many years” before AI was used in music.
A man who doesn’t talk to the press very often, Mr. Ek, said he saw three “buckets” of ways AI could be used:
He thought it was okay for tools like auto-tune to make music better, but it wasn’t. He also thought it was okay for tools to imitate artists, but it wasn’t. There was also a more contentious middle ground where AI-produced music clearly reflected but didn’t directly copy the styles of other artists.
He said, “It’s going to be tough” when asked about the problem the business world was facing.
However, the company does not allow its material to be used to train a machine learning or AI model, which can then make music. AI is not completely banned on the platform.
Artists are speaking out against AI use in the creative fields more and more.
Hozier, an Irish singer, said last month that he might go on strike because AI could hurt his job.
He was not sure if the technology “meets the definition of art” when he talked to BBC Newsnight.
Drake and The Weeknd didn’t know that sounds that were copies of their voices were being used on the song “Heart on My Sleeve.” In April, the song was taken down from Spotify and other streaming services.
Afterward, Ghostwriter, who made the song, tried to get it nominated for a Grammy award but failed.
“I can see someone posting a song and saying they are Madonna when they’re not.” At this point in Spotify’s history, people have tried to trick our system in pretty much every way, Mr. Ek said.
A very large team is working on these kinds of issues.
The Financial Times claimed in May that thousands of songs had been taken off of Spotify after it was found that bots were being used to falsely boost their streaming numbers.
Mr. Ek also talked about how much money the platform puts into podcasts, including ones from famous people like Michelle and Barack Obama and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Neither has been given a new job.
Some say the deal with Harry and Meghan was worth $25 million (£18 million), but they only got 12 episodes over the course of two and a half years. A Spotify official is said to have recently said bad things about the pair’s work ethic.
To “challenge Apple” as the market-leading podcast app by adding a lot of new creators, Mr. Ek said, “The truth is that some of it has worked and some of it hasn’t.”
“If you look back five years, Spotify wasn’t even in podcasting.”
A separate statement from the company said that Russell Brand’s show would stay on Spotify unless it was found to have broken Spotify’s own rules.
The podcast’s owner, Acast, said it would not accept any more advertising income while the comedian is still being investigated for sexual assault claims.
This is why Sweden-based Daniel Ek was in the UK to talk about rules and regulations. He said that the company supports both the upcoming Online Safety Bill (which will make the internet safer for kids) and the current Digital Markets Bill (which will make the market more competitive by closely watching the big tech companies).
Mr. Ek has been a vocal critic of Apple and Google’s app shops for a long time. Spotify depends on these stores. Both companies take 15% of in-app sales made by smaller developers. For developers making more than $1 million a year, that percentage goes up to 30%.
Spotify has also said that Apple makes it hard for the company to talk to its users and spread the word about its services in other places.
“There are two companies in the world that control how more than four billion people connect to the internet,” Mr. Ek said.
“If you think about a company like Spotify, we already give back almost 70% of our profits to the creative community. If we took the 30% cut away, we’d be left with almost nothing, which means we have to shut down.”
Apple was charged with breaking EU competition rules over this in April. This came after Spotify complained about it in 2020. The EC toned down its complaints against Apple in February, but there hasn’t been a final decision yet.
Apple said it would keep working with the EC. It is also said that most European writers make less than $1 million a year and can pay Apple a 15% commission rate.