If a song is created by artificial intelligence and listened to by a bot, was it even heard at all? It's a problem music-streaming companies now face as generative AI is rapidly making it easier for anyone to churn out songs with a few clicks, and then send bots to stream them for cash. "It's a floodgate," says Tony Rigg, a lecturer in music industry management at the University of Central Lancashire in the UK. And that torrent of new music amplifies the issue of fake listening, giving people a simple way to get streams on low-quality tracks. Some turn to third-party companies promising to boost streams, which then enlist bot-made accounts to listen to the same playlists on repeat.

After selling 23 million Switches two years ago and 18 million in the last year, Nintendo expects demand for the aging console to continue to fall. "Sustaining the Switch's sales momentum will be difficult in its seventh year," said president Shuntaro Furukawa in a call. "Our goal of selling 15 million units this fiscal year is a bit of a stretch." To achieve that, he added: "We try to not only put one system in every home but several in every home." Get our daily audio briefings, Monday through Friday, by subscribing right here. Volvo's compact electric SUV will be the EX30 Spotify has reportedly pulled tens of thousands of tracks from generative AI company Boomy.

Spotify has reportedly pulled tens of thousands of tracks from generative AI company Boomy. It's said to have removed seven percent of the songs created by the startup's systems, which underscores the swift proliferation of AI-generated content on music streaming platforms. Universal Music reportedly told Spotify and other major services that it detected suspicious streaming activity on Boomy's songs. In other words, there were suspicions that bots were being used to boost listener figures and generate ill-gotten revenue for uploaders. Spotify pays royalties to artists and rights holders on a per-listen basis.

If you have ever dreamed of earning money from a stellar music career but were concerned you had little talent, don't let that put you off - a man called Alex Mitchell might be able to help. Mr Mitchell is the founder and boss of a website and app called Boomy, which helps its users create their own songs using artificial intelligence (AI) software that does most of the heavy lifting. You choose from a number of genres, click on "create song", and the AI will compose one for you in less than 30 seconds. It swiftly picks the track's key, chords and melody. You can do things such as add or strip-out instruments, change the tempo, adjust the volumes, add echoes, make everything sound brighter or softer, and lay down some vocals.

Last December, Universal Music Publishing Group bought up Bob Dylan's entire discography in a deal estimated at more than $300 million. Similarly, Stevie Nicks sold an 80 percent share of her works to Primary Wave Music for an estimated $100 million that same month. But as all this money changes hands for the industry's biggest stars, one songwriting startup has plans to open the firehose of music royalties to the everyman. "You see these huge deals, like the Bob Dylan deal with the publishing rights and all this money," Alex Mitchell, co-founder and CEO of Boomy told Engadget. "It started with a recognition that most people are going to be left out of that and it caused us to have a conversation about equity in the music industry, 'how do we fairly remunerate artists, what's the role of labels,' there's just chaos happening in the music industry right now." Mitchell realized that one major obstacle keeping amateur musicians from becoming published musicians was a technological one.