Spotify Has a Fake-Band Problem. It's a Sign of Things to Come.

If you ask their shareholders, Spotify is in a great place right now. Ask anyone else, and it's a mess of scams, tone-deaf CEO messaging, and lawsuits. One of the weirdest scams that recently came to light involves (what else) A.I.-generated content. Here's the gist: Covers of popular songs were being inserted into large, publicly available playlists, hidden among dozens of other covers by real artists while racking up millions of listens and getting paid. The artists "performing" the covers--the Highway Outlaws, Waterfront Wranglers, Saltwater Saddles--all fit a certain pattern, with monthly listeners in the hundreds of thousands, zero social media footprint, and some very ChatGPT-sounding bios.