AI Technology - Spotify's use of AI may be controversial, is it evil ?

 

AI Technology - Although Spotify's use of AI may be controversial, is it evil? These claims and disclosures are astounding!

 

In this video, music historian Ted Gioia is interviewed by musician, producer, and well-known YouTuber Rick Beato for his YT show. Ted states that Johan Röhn, an artist on Spotify, has 15 billion streams of his 2,700 songs spread across more than 650 aliases. However, there are a few noteworthy points that warrant further discussion, including:

 

• Spotify promotes songs under all of the aliases in addition to on their official playlists; • Gioia claims that Röhn isn't a real person (this is debatable); • With their current payout/distribution model, this quantity of streams generated roughly $50M;

 

• Röhn's advertised "alter-egos" tracks had more downloads than those of Michael Jackson, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, ABBA, Elton John, and other superstars with large fan bases.

 

The "real" Johan Röhn appears to have received compensation totalling somewhere about $10,000. Röhn appears to be a real person who resides in Stockholm, Sweden—the home of Spotify—despite having little to no social media presence.

 

 

While all of this is strange, there are a lot of unsolved questions, including:

 

• Is the music produced by AI?

If yes, are the tools or tools in use proprietary?

Is Spotify a part of this?

• Is Johan Röhn a genuine individual?

• Are we consumers now consuming more music produced by AI than we realise?

 

Additionally, Spotify is making it more difficult for artists to profit from their downloads by refusing to pay artists for streams they believe to have been artificial and making songs play longer before paying artists as a "play." This is despite a recent "Justice at Spotify" campaign, which saw 20,000 recording artists demand higher payouts, supported by the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers (AMAW), and a second petition from the Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), which included signatures from Billie Eilish, REM, Nicki Minaj, and many others in opposition to both Spotify and AI-generated music.

 

 

All of this may be compared to Netflix owning the films and television shows it streams and suggests, with the obvious exception that actual actors, producers, and other creatives continue to receive genuine compensation cash.

 

If Gioia's estimations are accurate, Spotify is either making/keeping all of the money or splitting the profit with a patsy.

 

If only smart contracts were used to tie blockchain technology to music IP, provenance, etc.