Deezer says 44% of new music uploads are AI-generated, most streams are fraudulent

AI tracks account for a small fraction of Deezer streams, and most are demonetized for fraud.

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[murty]

Oh I have that on my watch list, big fan of his channel. I highly recommend his content. I think a lot of Ars readers would appreciate his second most recent video:


View: https://youtu.be/NR1Lf-CQyfw

And that video is on my watch list, haven’t had a chance to get to it yet. The AI one caught my more immediate attention. Love his stuff!

Gotta shout out to 8 Bit Big Band, they've been doing it for years, play live on the recordings, and I've seen their show live. I don't expect musicians to be their own videographers and editing experts but at this point just showing yourself playing is just the easiest way to know it's not AI.

The past year I've fallen in love with "X album with Y system sound font", that's pretty easy to use AI for so it's hard to filter it out sadly. It's depressing to be skeptical over everything nowadays.

8-Bit Big Band are great! Been a huge fan of theirs for a while now.

Some similar groups, if you’ve not encountered them before:

The OneUps: https://youtube.com/TheOneUps

The Consouls: https://youtube.com/@TheConsoulsBand

The Skatune Network (not exclusively video game music): https://youtube.com/@skatunenetwork

Super Soul Bros (seems defunct but they’ve got some great music): https://youtube.com/@SuperSoulBros/ (they probably have more at their Band Camp page than YT, but YT has some live performances).

Kirby’s Dream Band: https://kirbysdreamband.bandcamp.com/

Contraband Reloaded: https://youtube.com/c/ContrabandReloaded

I am sure there are countless others I am forgetting right now, but those are some of my favorites.

 

[djotaku]

Good conversation here about the AI and music and whether or not classical music can be aped by AI. But from around paragraph about Gemini allowing users to make music all I could think was that I could use this to create some silly songs for my Bard in my TTRPG sessions.

 

[geekydee]

so create music with AI, and play it via AI, and get paid by the streaming service, i see a business model....

You ledt out :Have it streamed by AI bots" before the profit part

 

[DeathOfTime]

i've been ignoring channels left and right. i liked the slop for like all of two songs. then just couldn't take it anymore. they were just so crap. they might sound like the music i like, at first. they aint though. chorus issues, consistency issues, and such plague them something awful

 

[Dputiger]

I've stopped listening to music produced after 2022 if I can't verify the authenticity of the performer with a publication history that extends back at least that far. Channels with minimal histories that suddenly start pumping out a track or two of music a day are almost always a dead giveaway for AI generation.

I genuinely regret this. I have no interest in cutting myself off from the work humans are doing to create new music -- but I will not give money via views / plays to AI slop generators. If an AI composed, arranged, and performed your music, you might as well take the final step and find an AI that wants to listen to it, too. I'm not interested.

 

[Dputiger]

Good conversation here about the AI and music and whether or not classical music can be aped by AI. But from around paragraph about Gemini allowing users to make music all I could think was that I could use this to create some silly songs for my Bard in my TTRPG sessions.

As far as I can tell, AI's entire problem is that the tasks it is best at are not particularly high value. I completely understand why you might spend an hour or two generating silly lyrics and music for your bard. The difference is, you aren't trying to monetize the laughter of your friends or turn it into a viral asset.

But AI services, broadly speaking, need those high-value use cases to drive revenue. The use of an LLM to generate a bit of personal whimsy 2x-10x faster than you might write it yourself is not the problem. Burying legitimate music services in low-quality slop, in contrast, is a problem. This gives AI companies an incentive to produce higher-quality slop. But higher quality slop is, itself, more expensive to make, which means they need to charge an ever-increasing amount of money to justify the compute required.

It's like the opposite of an economy of scale. Absent significant breakthroughs in efficiency and performance, the better the service gets, the more it costs. The more it costs, the fewer people can afford it. My understanding is that even charging $200/mo for various Pro services is not enough, because the people who consume AI at that level still cost far more than they pay.

 

[John Pombrio]

Creativity can go both ways. In original human-made music and in setting up a unique AI algorithm that sounds original and good enough to create goosebumps. Once the "wow" shows up in AI music, then it will be a truly new form of entertainment, only loosely associated with the music industry of today. I have not had it happen to me YET, and I might live long enough to witness this new renaissance. But I hear glimmers of it already.

 

[Bentbob]

I'm stuck on pre 1922 music. Well I guess that fellow Gershwin wrote a few good things...

A good chance that even if you stick to what appears to be pre-1922 music, there will still be a risk of it being generative AI created if it's from a modern source e.g. you queue up in music streaming app a 206 recording of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 by an orchestra you are not familiar with, and it turns out to be generated performance.

If the music composition is public domain, then there would be no copyright infringement issues for generating artificial performances of the music (no royalties paid or licenses needed). If it has not already been attempted en masse then likely more sooner than later someone is going to flood public domain music categories in any platform where some cents can be squeezed out of the business.

 

[Thegs]

This is the T-Pain paradox. T-Pain is a great singer, really. But T-Pain autotuned himself to bits when creating his music.

Is it AI? Is it artistic intent? I don’t know. Does it sound better on a CD blaring out of a Pontiac Firebird with an irrational level of bass? Yes.

I thought it was pretty widely understood as an artistic choice by now, a throwback to singers, bands, and groups like Stevie Wonder and Zapp that used things like vocoders, talk boxes, and electrolarynxes in their music. Like, we don't listen to Daft Punk and wonder if their decision to use a vocoder for the vocals in Around the World and Robot Rock was intentional or not, right? Autotune, especially autotune used so obviously (most uses are far more subtle and much harder to suss out), is the vocoder of the 21st century. When used this way it's another instrument, only it's controlled with their voice instead of their hands.

 

[odikweos]

Another issue to consider is that a human being wasn't involved enough in pushing forward our collective culture... so a human doesn't get paid for art. At best a human gets paid for a prompt, but no skill in creation.

Do we want a society where our value to the world is based on how profitable we are, or can we leave room for art and fancy to be valuable in the world?

Big gray boxes are efficient to build and operate, but they suck to live in.

Of course you are correct. That's an entirely separate issue IMO from the topic of "can it do the thing."

 

[RZetopan]

Bots listening to bot music to boost bot music on computer algorithms.
Jesus wept.

An indirectly related, but funny story. I once had an awful university professor who "invented" a "call the fire station box" if a fire was detected in a house (this was back in the 1960s, or so). It would call the fire station and play a recording identifying the location of the house. He said that after a number of years he went back to his only installation to see if it was still functioning. It was located in an outbuilding (not the house for obvious reasons) and it was still functioning after all that time. However, the house had burned down a couple of years previous, and after every few minutes it would call the fire department issuing its message since no one had reset it. And the funny part is that the fire station had moved and had gotten a new phone number. The response to an invalid number was an automated phone message stating that number was no longer in service. So, here are two recordings playing telephone with each other, which is somewhat similar to: bots producing music that only bots listen to, to game the system. We have come full circle from the 1960s.

 

[Delerious]

That's true but the comment suggests that musicians in Beethoven's day didn't use the technology. I mean, I certainly don't have a printing press! double checks

So are you suggesting the poster was delirious or perhaps that the joke was technically incorrect, the worst kind of incorrect?

pen and paper or quill and parchment if you prefer.

 

[RZetopan]

Authenthic human experiences will be the luxury item of the future.

And some definitely want to avoid that. The Muskrat is quite enthralled with his AI “girlfriend”. Likely because it constantly praises him, like he imagines that he really, really, really deserves.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...tedly-obsessed-with-ai-girlfriend/ar-AA1PXcDy

 

[d4p8266]

I use Deezer as my music streaming platform af choice, and for a while (mid- to late 2025 I'd guess), it was really bad.
I stopped listening to the Discover playlist because it was so full of terrrible AI slop.
As of late, it has been drastically improved. The last time a perceptibly-to-my-ear AI-generated song has been recommended to me was months ago. I'd be interested to know if they have an estimate of the actual false negative rate.
So at least from a user's perspective, their tech seems to work very well. It's possible that actually decent AI tracks have slipped through without my noticing. That would still dilute the payment pool for artists, but at least I don't have to listen to blatant slop.

 

[IGoBoom]

I'm confused, why would DJs want to put themselves out of business by making it easier for AI to mimic them?

It's not the DJs themselves it's the influencers who are trying to push this.

You already see this to some extent with celebrity DJs.

But if you are a club owner, venue owner and you can eliminate the costs for hiring talent to drive your venue ...

 

[jdale]

For now, yes, you probably do. And it's possible you'll keep that perspective.

For most, however, there will come a time when it no longer speaks to them. It's speaking to a younger generation, and ignoring all the others on purpose. Each generation has its own voice, and most of that voice is expressed through their music.

That's happened time and again every generation going back as far as recorded history extends. Each creates its own identity and tends to stick to it. Collectively, this is how humans are.

I grew up hearing adults listen to "golden oldies" from the 50's and 60's. I didn't want to be that person. I avoid the 80's music that I was listening to myself. It was fun, I'm over it.

I think I may have nostalgia deficiency disorder.

Individuals may find different paths - it takes all kinds, after all. But for the most part, people who hear music will want the composer to have been flesh and blood who speaks to them and their reality, and not something created by algorithms and stolen IP.

Hopefully so! And not AI music sung by AI influencers.

 

[trashcanman]

Anyone thinking AI isn’t coming for whatever art form they happen to enjoy is fooling themselves. As a photographer, I already questioned a lot of the images I see online, but now when I see an exceptional image my first thought is, is this AI manipulation or is it real?

And I hate that. I hate doubting people. To appreciate a great image is to also appreciate the skill it took to capture it, particularly with dynamic wildlife photography where that magic moment is gone in the blink of an eye.

 

[Marlor_AU]

Human curation, rather than algorithmic curation, is the answer. It's always the answer.

Want to hear a fantastic, eclectic selection of music? Use hand-curated playlists for discovery. Personally, for me, that is Radio Paradise. Want even more recommendations? Find a critic that aligns with your preferences and subscribe to their Substack.

Want high-quality news that isn't drowning in slop? Stick to a handful of human-curated newspapers/websites with a decent track record, rather than a social media slop feed.

Want to find new books to read? Don't just go down a social media rabbit hole which tends to amplify whatever is trendy. Subscribe to a magazine focused on book reviews.

Algorithmic curation is a terrible idea for creative content. It leads to slop, and creators have an incentive to game the algorithm rather than producing interesting, novel material. Platforms rarely have any real understanding of how their own algorithms actually work, so detecting and combating fraud is difficult.

If the platforms replaced all the effort they put into algorithms with a team of music-obsessed DJs, we'd see a bunch of high-quality daily playlists for each genre and region - all selected on quality rather than opaque metrics. And the DJs doing the curation tend to work for a pittance, because it's their dream job.

 

[kingjj]

I dunno where people are getting this idea that their special genre is slop-free, I promise you it's not.

I think that "live" genre is pretty safe (then again, I sort of limit mine to the kind where instruments are played, and not like rave DJs and whatnot)

 

[Marlor_AU]

Anyone thinking AI isn’t coming for whatever art form they happen to enjoy is fooling themselves. As a photographer, I already questioned a lot of the images I see online, but now when I see an exceptional image my first thought is, is this AI manipulation or is it real?

And I hate that. I hate doubting people. To appreciate a great image is to also appreciate the skill it took to capture it, particularly with dynamic wildlife photography where that magic moment is gone in the blink of an eye.

With photography, there's another curveball, and that is AI sharpening/noise reduction/supersampling/retouching.

Used carefully, it can produce results on-par with the best classical approaches, but without the artifacts (ringing, noise amplification, etc.). However, when used to an excessive degree, it can start to "invent" significant amounts of detail.

Many wildlife photographers have jumped on-board with the technology. It helps them save otherwise-excellent shots that would have been discarded because they were slightly blurred or too noisy. But sometimes – seeing the "before" and "after" shots – you have to wonder how much of the final result is an actual photograph, and how much is synthesized.

The same goes for astrophotography. AI tools have revolutionized de-blurring and de-noising. But these tools are often pushed right to the limits of plausibility.

 

[agpob]

Used to be every time I found a new Metal band I liked I'd give them a quick google to be sure they aren't Neo Nazis or whatever. Now I've also got to check to be sure they are real humans.

that may not work any more. I have seen Ai generated websites of the Ai generated bands/artists that give a detailed history. All fiction... Any online inquiry can still direct you to Ai generated fictional history of a fictional band/artist. Can't rely on any search engine. Ai will tell you that Ai is a genuine human band/artist with a documented history. Sad....

 

[Ianab]

Just as a reminder, local alternative music radio stations still do exist in some locales.

They also exist or stream on the Internet. If they actually have a "program director" it's not hard for the station to program music from actual humans. Ones that actually play live even. If they are local of course they are likely to even play current acts that you can even go and actually see yourself.

 

[vr_driver]

This AI stuff is driving me crazy. try working in a radio station where people keep submitting this crap. It's nuts.

 

[Wheels Of Confusion]

I thought it was pretty widely understood as an artistic choice by now, a throwback to singers, bands, and groups like Stevie Wonder and Zapp that used things like vocoders, talk boxes, and electrolarynxes in their music. Like, we don't listen to Daft Punk and wonder if their decision to use a vocoder for the vocals in Around the World and Robot Rock was intentional or not, right? Autotune, especially autotune used so obviously (most uses are far more subtle and much harder to suss out), is the vocoder of the 21st century. When used this way it's another instrument, only it's controlled with their voice instead of their hands.

Incorrect. Those effects were never used to cover up bad singing, or to alter the pitch after the fact in a "we'll fix it in post" fashion.
The recording industry sometimes pushes autotune on artists because it wants them to sound more polished, not obviously robotic. The weird vocal breaks in e.g. T-Pain's style are not the only way autotune can be used, just like a motorcycle's exhaust system can be tuned to sound louder and more ragged or it can be tuned to be quieter and less annoying.

 

[Fred Duck]

pen and paper or quill and parchment if you prefer.

That must have been great fun. I remember Linus* once explained that the manuscript of the hit novel War and Peace was copied by hand seven times, with a dip pen, by candlelight.

* Van Pelt.

 

[christgod]

This is yet another reason for changing the payment model.
If I pay Deezer/Spotify/Tidal/... a considerable amount of money, I want that money to mostly go to the artists I listen to.
Instead it goes to AI scammers and Taylor Swift (at least she's human, making her own music - as far as I can tell).

I don't listen to music a lot - according to my calculations, if I pay 10$ in a month, less than 10ct of that will go to my favorite artists. That's the real scandal and the reason the system is attractive for AI slop scammers.

 

[sunnysocal]

As a professional musician/composer/recording engineer, I am extremely grateful that my art form is well-suited to live performance in front of paying audiences.

Since streaming became the predominant way people get their music, recordings have primarily become promotional material with which artists sell concert tickets and t-shirts. My studio clients are starting to use AI as "style demos", and one used AI to help write his lyrics on an epic production, but we are still recording the parts by actually performing them. I don't like the AI involvement, but I need to work.

OTOH, I just played live shows in Vancouver and Seattle last weekend. The bill's sold-out audiences were great... excited, enthusiastic. I had a lot of fun (and got paid.) The robots are coming, yes, but live music performed by human beings will endure. Thankfully.

 

[krycek1984]

I listen almost exclusively to dance/electronic music. It's a genre that lends itself to falling victim to AI creations by it's nature. It's unfortunate, some of the remixes you never know if it's "real", or AI, or some random dudes creation, but it bangs.

The only reason I knew the songs from a new "artist" that popped up for me was AI was because of the ridiculous obviously AI cover art. But damn I kept listening to those songs over and over. They sound high quality, well produced, if a bit homogenous/overly smooth. I feel kinda guilty, but I really dig the songs.

Also, surprisingly, I had much more trouble on Spotify with AI slop and suspiciously sourced music on than I ever have on YT music, you'd think it would be the other way around.

 

[ngoncalves]

Gonna point this out:

This is the reason why in the DJ space online there is a huge push for everyone to start conforming to rules about phrasing, key changes, and [insert word]-play.

The more regimented you make the music, the easier is for someone to write a LLM that can follow these "industry-standard" rules to put out slop.

Keep that in mind in each of your hobbies as influencers keep popping up to start preaching the "right way to do something" when no one cared for years as long as the final product was good.

I will disagree. Music, at least to western ears, is very standardised. And that means that what people accept as music has vey well established rules. Some styles, jazz notably, will bend the rules but not outright break them. So doing things in a standard way is the normal way to make music.

Personally, nothing against people using AI to make music. It is, like Jimmy Carr pointed out, just another cover band. As long as it is labelled as such, it does not bother me. Otherwise, it is just a scam and should be dealt with with the full force of the law.

 

[Mawich]

I have to applaud Deezer for this, really. I'm sure that as a streaming provider they've had their own share of negative influence on the music industry and its willingness to actually pay artists for anything, but at least they're talking about the generative AI problem.

It does remind those of us with the means and the inclination: get to know the genres you like, seek out the artists, follow their feeds, promote their work, buy their albums. Unless they're a megastar like Taylor Swift, they need the help.

 

[publicvoid]

So I use Deezer, but I'm curious specifically which services are comparatively better or worse at rooting out slop. Would be good consumer advice.

From what I can tell, Spotify seems to be the worst, as they're actively trying to make money off AI slop. I remember reading on Ars a few weeks or months ago, that they were creating AI clones of real artists themselves, so that they could heavily promote the clones, and get paid for the AI streams while undercutting the original artists. But I can't find the article today so I can't guarantee that this is true, it might just be a rumor spread in the comments section ? But it seems to be the kind of behaviour they would engage in, knowing how they just love to not pay the artists who publish on the platform.

A few weeks ago a friend of mine told me about the latest album from Fred Hersch, which was really weird because it was kind of pop-rock instead of jazz (which is the style practiced by Fred Hersch). After a quick check, this "album" was not from Fred Hersch, but was promoted on Spotify as being from him. It was easy to find out, especially since there wasn't any piano in the music (Hersch being a pianist). But I expect that the people pushing AI clone music will get better at it and it will be harder and harder in the future to be sure that what you are listening to has indeed been produced by the artist and isn't an AI imitation.

 

[bigsnake499]

Streaming services generating their own AI slop is the end game. With no royalties, all the subscription money is pure profit. Greed will ensure the 44% will be approaching 100% within 5 years and we will one day look back and wonder how we allowed it to happen.

Why pay to stream AI slop when you can generate your own AI slop? There goes your profit.

 

[AverageDutchGuy]

I'm confused, why would DJs want to put themselves out of business by making it easier for AI to mimic them?

It's not the actual DJs pushing this.

 

[KobayashiSaru]

This is why I rely mostly on human curated Internet radio and Bandcamp for much of my new music discovery. It's also given me a new appreciation for seeing live music again. Just went to see a band last week and the opener was even better than the artist I was there to see.

SomaFM and BAGeL Radio are my musical lifelines.

 

[dsync]

One problem in the future will be how to define AI gen music.

e.g.

• AI make me a song vs
• AI make me a song with these lyrics in the style of Candlemass vs
• AI write me 10 different drum parts in 5/4 and give me midi for it in Danny Carey's style similar to the grudge that I can choose from to use as backing for my song in c# minor about my ear falling off

etc.

Musical component generation via things like Instachord, Synplant, Orb producer studio, etc. etc. etc. are all becoming pretty standard toolkits in a lot of genre's, at some point even the non-AI music will basically be curation of AI bits.

Studios are using AI to gen sheet music for their 100m+ listener pop-bands - meaning we're even crossing over into AI creating music for live....