Fez — Spotify says it has deleted more than 75 million guideline-breaking tracks over the past year, much of it low-value content or AI-assisted uploads that game its payout system.
The company paired the revelation with a policy refresh that draws a line between “responsible, creative” AI use and abuses such as voice-cloning and catalog flooding.
The update introduces a stricter impersonation policy: unauthorized AI voice clones and other deepfakes will be taken down, including tracks wrongly uploaded to an artist’s page.
Spotify is also deploying a music-spam filter to identify and demote bulk, duplicative, or low-effort uploads that exploit recommendations and royalties. And, working with DDEX, Spotify will begin showing AI-use disclosures in track credits—from writing to vocals, instrumentation, or post-production—so listeners and partners can see how a song was made without automatically burying it in the algorithm.
Generative tools have made it easier to mass-produce tracks or mimic star voices, confusing listeners and diluting discovery. Spotify argues the problem is less about banning AI music and more about trust: fans should know who and what they’re hearing, and rights-holders need guardrails against identity theft and fraudulent uploads. The company’s stance has drawn broad industry attention, from trade media to major labels, as platforms race to separate experimentation from exploitation.
The crackdown builds on earlier monetization changes. Since early 2024, tracks must reach 1,000 streams in 12 months to generate recording royalties on Spotify—a threshold the company says concentrates payouts on the 99.5% of listening that happens above that line and reduces incentive for micro-spam uploads. Critics counter that the rule is tough on emerging artists and niche scenes; Spotify maintains it doesn’t increase its own take and aims to curb gaming.
For Moroccan and regional creators distributing through global partners, two shifts matter immediately. First, faster removals for unauthorized voice clones and misattributed uploads should make it easier to defend name, likeness, and page integrity across borders.
Second, AI disclosures in credits will increasingly be a professional norm; artists who use assistive tools (lyrics polish, stems clean-up, arrangement aids) can be transparent without being de-ranked, while deceptive use faces enforcement. Expect distributors to add DDEX fields over the coming months as the standard rolls out.
Spotify says the spam filter will roll out in phases; impersonation rules apply now; and AI-credit displays will appear as labels and distributors pass the new metadata. The company insists it paid out $10 billion in royalties last year and that AI-only music still draws a tiny share of listening, but the real test will be whether stricter rules clean up catalogs without burying good-faith experimentation.
