Spotify Says Music Created With AI Is Welcome

Spotify’s Co-President has said that AI-generated music will have a place on the platform, but Spotify does not intend to create and release music with generative technology.

Gustav Söderström – who is also the streaming giant’s Chief Product & Technology Officer – appeared on a recent episode of the Big Technology podcast, discussing how Spotify plans on contending with the issues posed by the potential that progress in generative AI has with regards to creating music.

In his view, AI is “amplifying creativity”. On the podcast, he tells host Alex Kantrowitz: “[AI is] giving more and more people access to be creative. You need even less motor skills than on a piano. You need less technical skills than [your] own [digital audio] workstation. So I think of them as tools.”

Söderström clarifies that there is a distinction between music that only uses AI for specific elements of a song and music that is 100 per cent AI-generated.

“We’re a tool for creators,” he replies, “and if creators want to use AI to enhance their music, as long as we follow the legislation and copyright laws, we want them to be able to monetise their music and pay out.”

Söderström believes that AI-generated music is welcome on Spotify as long as it’s legally sound with regards to copyright. “If creators are using these technologies – where they are creating music in a legal way that we reimburse and people listen to them – and are successful, we should let people listen to them.”

He later rules out the possibility of Spotify generating and hosting its own AI-generated music that it would therefore not have to pay royalties on.

“I don’t think it’s our job to generate that music instead of the creators,” he says. “There’s the question, should we generate all the music ourselves? And that’s where we’re saying, ‘No, we’re not going to generate that music.’ But maybe other platforms will, because it’s cheap content, right? We decided what we want to be in this world, and it’s a platform for creators.”

In other Spotify news, it was revealed earlier this week that Spotify’s CEO and co-founder Daniel Ek cashed out $35.8 million in Spotify stock, just months after reports that he had earned more from his shares in 12 months than any other artist on the platform ever has. Meanwhile, co-founder Martin Lorentzon, sold 959,762 shares of SPOT worth $383.75 million.

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