Deezer announces “world’s first” AI song tagging system to fight fraud

The global music experiences platform Deezer will now clearly flag which “albums include fully artificial intelligence (AI)-generated tracks”.

According to Deezer, AI-generated music currently accounts for only 0.5% of all streams, but the purpose of uploading it is clearly fraudulent. The platform determined that 70% of such streams are malicious.

Fraudsters tend to exploit a system loophole by using bots to “listen” to AI-generated songs and claim revenue from the platform, aiming to evade existing detection measures.

Once Deezer identifies stream manipulation of any kind, it excludes those streams from the royalty payments. Although most of such AI tracks are never streamed on Deezer, they still dilute the catalog and can be used for fraudulent purposes.

The news follows the launch of its AI-Music detection tool, which revealed that nearly 18% of all music uploaded daily, or 20,000 tracks, is 100% AI-generated, up from 10% earlier this year.

“We’ve detected a significant uptick in delivery of AI generated music only in the past few months and we see no sign of it slowing down. It’s an industry wide issue and we are committed to leading the way in increasing transparency by helping music fans identify which albums include AI music,” said Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer.

“AI is not inherently good or bad, but we believe a responsible and transparent approach is key to building trust with our users and the music industry. We are also clear in our commitment to safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models.”

Deezer now excludes fully AI-generated tracks from algorithmic and editorial recommendations in an attempt to improve user experience and minimize any negative impact on artist remuneration.