Scammers Use AI and Distribution Loophole to Post Fake Songs on Real Artists’ Streaming Pages

The scheme is simple. 404 Media said it confirmed the process by testing it with the Brooklyn band Lathe of Heaven. A scammer makes a slop song using a service such as Suno or Udio, uses generative AI to make an album cover, signs up for a digital music distributor such as DistroKid, and then lies that they are a real band. The platform does the rest. Before long, the song appears as a new release from the real artist on multiple services.

Neither the distribution service nor the streaming platform catches the error, according to the report. That allows the song to earn money for the scammer and to be presented to listeners as the work of the targeted artist. The payout is likely to be higher than with typical AI slop because the fake track is attached to an established name and profile page. Emanuel Maiberg wrote in a post that it is “shockingly easy” to post AI-generated music under the name of real artists on Spotify. “It took us five minutes to do. You can do it to small bands, dead artists, even Taylor Swift. This is a giant loophole in digital music distribution that's widely abused,” he said.

Smaller artists are more vulnerable because famous musicians often have teams checking for this type of activity. The issue has also affected dead artists. Spotify confirmed to 404 Media that “profiles that aren't actively managed can be especially vulnerable.”

Lathe of Heaven's vocalist told 404 Media that making music and putting it into the world as a distinct product of the artist's own hands is “essentially one of the last driving forces behind making music.” The vocalist said the fact that someone could ruin the band's reputation by dropping “this cringe garbage” under its name is “insanely disheartening” and “speaks volumes about distribution and streaming services that allow this to happen.”

The musical group Odette Child began tracking the problem in July and has since found more than 300 AI-generated songs pretending to be from major acts such as Taylor Swift, random celebrities, dead jazz musicians and “just about everything in between.” The loophole existed before AI slop began taking over music-streaming platforms, according to the report, but generative AI has changed the scale. Creating one dummy song and uploading it under someone else's name is one thing; using AI to create and upload hundreds in a day is another.

Spotify is working on a tool that lets musicians review releases before they go live and become associated with their profiles, but the feature remains in a limited beta. It was first announced in March. Statistics vary, but it has been estimated that around 50,000 AI-generated songs are uploaded to Spotify every day.

“We can just see very clearly that they are not interested in the best possible solution to this problem,” Odette Child said. “We need some sort of infrastructure that can protect us from this as consumers, listeners and especially as artists.”

Spotify said that “protecting artists' identities is a top priority for us, and we continue to invest heavily in detection and prevention.” It also said it is “working directly with distributors to stop bad submissions at the source,” which could mean the loophole is eventually closed. Amazon Music said it is “committed to continuously improving our enforcement through advanced detection technologies and refined monitoring systems, and we're in regular dialogue with partners and rights holders to ensure we're protecting artists' and songwriters' interests as the landscape evolves.”

The platforms have taken some steps. Spotify has introduced a verification badge that confirms a song is not AI-generated and a spam filter that looks for “mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse and other forms of slop.” The report says those steps do not appear to be working.