As AI swamps music platforms Deezer is fighting back unlike Spotify

Songs generated by AI tools such as Suno and Udio are flooding Deezer — but the French music streaming platform is trying to fight back. 

Deezer said on Wednesday that users are adding over 20,000 fully AI-generated tracks to its platform each day. This bot-made audio now makes up 18% of “total uploaded content” — almost double the 10% figure the company shared in January. 

Aurelian Herault, Deezer's chief innovation officer, said the flood of AI-generated slop songs is an issue that shows “no sign of slowing down.”

In January, Deezer launched a tool that detects AI-generated music. The algorithm can identify artificially created songs made using several popular generative AI models, including Suno and Udio, which turn basic text prompts into “music.”  

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Thanks to the tool, Deezer is already “removing fully AI-generated content from the algorithmic recommendations,” Herault said. The company also plans to develop a tagging system for fully AI-generated content, it said in January.  

Deezer's tool stands out in an industry that largely seems to be turning a blind eye to the issue.

Rival platform Spotify has yet to launch any equivalent tool to track AI-generated music. It also hasn't made any attempts to label such content, at least not publicly.     

CEO Daniel Ek previously said that tracks created with AI were fair game on the platform — unless they mimicked real artists. However, Spotify seems to be doing a lousy job of identifying and removing these AI imitations, according to several reports

Other music streaming platforms, including Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal, have remained virtually mute on the topic.

It's perhaps unsurprising that popular music streaming platforms are sitting on their hands. There are currently no laws in place to regulate the flow of AI-generated songs, or a consensus on what kinds of artificial music are acceptable or not. 

Last year, a group of US record labels sued Suno and Udio, alleging copyright infringement on a “massive scale.” However, the two companies claim that training their models on copyrighted music falls under “fair use,” a common defence from AI firms.

“Generative AI has the potential to positively impact music creation and consumption, but we need to approach the development with responsibility and care in order to safeguard the rights and revenues of artists and songwriters, while maintaining transparency for the fans,” said Herault.

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