More from All the latest in AI ‘music’
The company just raised $250 million in November against a $2.45 billion valuation — already a staggering jump from its roughly $500 million valuation in 2024. Now it’s more than doubled its valuation to $5.4 billion in just over six months, suggesting that investors haven’t been scared off by looming lawsuits.
Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. on human creativity in the age of AI
Its new Music v2 model can generate songs that can switch from opera to heavy metal mid-track, while handling faster rap delivery and non-musical sound effects, according to ElevenLabs. The new model is available today and is trained “only on licensed data and cleared for commercial use.”
Why would you disrespect your favorite artist with an AI remix?
6
Verge Score
I don’t hate Polyend’s Endless, but I’m not putting it on my pedalboard.
After launching the Verified by Spotify badge for musicians a few weeks ago, the service now has a sticker for podcasters who actually exist in real life, as AI-generated podslop floods RSS feeds.
It’s also “reaffirming” its unauthorized impersonation policy, saying it will remove podcasts that copy someone else’s likeness without permission, whether through AI cloning or any other method.
Verified by Spotify badge lets you know this artist isn’t AI
Bloomberg recently reported that 39 percent of podcasts over a nine-day period were likely AI-generated, according to data from Podcast Index. Inception Point AI is at the forefront, reportedly publishing 3,000 episodes a week, flooding podcasting apps with low-quality trash. According to Bloomberg:
And the Inception Point team isn’t the only one who’s executing on this type of strategy. In the past nine days or so, 10,871 new podcast feeds have been created; approximately 4,243, or 39%, might have been AI-generated, according to the Podcast Index, an open-source platform that tracks the ecosystem.
They won’t ban it. They won’t embrace it either.
Suno is available on Android Auto, and CarPlay support is in the works. Now you can stream all your illicit AI covers on your road trip from Hell. According to a post in the Suno Discord, features are limited, with only search, library and explore support, plus playback control.
After announcing in September it was working with industry group DDEX on a standard for disclosing when AI is used in a song, AI credits are launching with DistroKid as the first partner. Unfortunately, even if the rest of the industry gets on board, voluntary labels likely won’t be enough as AI uploads threaten to overtake humans.
It makes it easy to flood streaming with AI Beyoncé ripoffs.
Murphy Campbell plays public domain ballads, but YouTube accepted the copyright claim anyway.
It’s not just the country music scene that’s quietly embraced AI, artists across genres are using it to experiment with arrangements, demo new songs, and create sample material. But, songwriter Michelle Lewis told Rolling Stone, nobody wants to admit it. And producer Young Guru believes it’s more widespread than anyone realizes:
…it’s become common for hip-hop producers to make funk and soul samples out of AI, rather than license original music or hire musicians. Guru guesses that “more than half” of sample-based hip-hop is being made this way now.
[Rolling Stone]
Last week, Michael Smith pleaded guilty to creating hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and then using bots to stream the songs “billions” of times. The scheme allowed Smith to earn over $8 million in royalties, according to the DOJ.
Not even Spotify is safe from AI slop
Deezer started labeling AI content last year. Now Qobuz is doing the same. It’s also enacting an AI charter promising “The heart of Qobuz is and will remain human,” saying curation and editorial won’t be AI-driven. It stopped short of banning AI content, which some customers have been asking for.
