ListNook

Runkleford Mar 25, 2026 +108

I don't use Spotify and I looked at the screenshots and I didn't see them labelled as AI so are they required at all to disclose that they are AI? Do people know they're listening to AI?

108

StudyPlaylists Mar 25, 2026 +119

No, and that's the problem. You do not have to declare AI usage on Spotify and users cannot filter out AI songs. I made this page after I was listening autoplay and every third song sounded like AI to me (I have been producing music for almost 20 years, so I could immediately tell). And in just 1 hour of research I found these 50 profiles, which are 100% AI.

119

Runkleford Mar 25, 2026 +85

So it sounds like Spotify is part of the problem and just don't care as long as these AI "artists" are making them money

85

jemosley1984 Mar 25, 2026 +49

It wouldn’t surprise me if Spotify is the ones behind the AI artists.

49

morerelativebacons Mar 26, 2026 +2

Evil Scooby doo bullshit.

2

FjorgVanDerPlorg Mar 26, 2026 +2

Slopify

2

HOLEPUNCHYOUREYELIDS Mar 25, 2026 +23

They absolutely are. I just had my first clearly AI recommendation pop up. How do I know it is AI? Because it came up under “New Releases for You” and it is a song by……Heart And the single cover is clearly of some AI woman, and the song lists the artist as “Heart, SunoAI” And it straight up takes you to the legitimate artist page for Heart

23

timbreandsteel Mar 26, 2026 +10

Heart should sue SunoAI

10

mango_boom Mar 25, 2026 +12

Record labels are creating fake bands and getting paid too.

12

Panorabifle Mar 26, 2026 +12

It's worse than that. Spotify pays the artists on its platform a percentage of their revenue. Meaning a given sum is divided between all artists relative to their listen count. Spotify themselves are creating ai "bands" that they shove in their ready made playlists . They are the one receiving their share of revenue. So these Ai "artists" are, in fact, taking away revenue to real artists , regardless of real artists listen count .

12

feelingrestless_ Mar 25, 2026 +19

exactly. folks need to move away from spotify.

19

booveebeevoo Mar 25, 2026 +1

I don’t seem to have this problem since I stick to my playlist. AI music is just weird. What the hell are they thinking?

1

Ok_Control7824 Mar 26, 2026 +1

Download your playlist and leave.

1

jacodemon Mar 26, 2026 +1

Help me out here. How on earth do people find themselves unknowingly listening to anything at all. I mean, how do people not know the provenance of the thing they have put on. Is it literally just people pressing play on things that they have no idea what they are at all?

1

Thuringwethil777 Mar 25, 2026 +18

Discovered a playlist that has over 2 million saves that I'm pretty sure is AI - Jazz in the Background. Wild.

18

Dear_Afternoon_2600 Mar 26, 2026 +1

I remember using that playlist before AI was a thing, remember liking it. I dont use spotify anymore but it's a shame that is has devolved into this.

1

StudyPlaylists Mar 26, 2026 +1

Oh no, I think you're right! I also like this playlist. There I find it hard to tell 100%, but most "artists" have a bit of an AI sound and have no releases prior to 2025. So annoying. Makes me really wonder how big those AI-numbers really are. My page is surely only scratching the surface...

1

ShadyOperation Mar 25, 2026 +64

Nice work. Another reason to vote with your money and move off Spotify.

64

SimpleLobsters Mar 26, 2026 +11

Is there an alternative that's better? I'd love to move off Spotify but I just don't know where else I can go. What do you recommend?

11

feelingrestless_ Mar 26, 2026 +10

both deezer and apple tag ai generated content. i believe deezer blocks ai content from any recommendations.

10

ShakimTheClown Mar 26, 2026 +3

>i believe deezer blocks ai content from any recommendations. Yeah, I can confirm this. I switched to Deezer a couple months ago after being a Spotify user for 10 years. I hope more people make the switch.

3

trowawayatwork Mar 26, 2026 +1

been a Spotify user since 2009. don't want to go back to hype machine/limewire days. I don't have time. will check out deezer

1

framedragged Mar 26, 2026 +1

Deezer blocks ai content that it detects, and it has its detection threshold set wayyyy too high. As a new user who set up a profile pretty in depth and transferred over a lot, it still took less than 5 minutes of scrolling their flow thing to get ai recomendations. I also checked ai bands that spotify put in my daylists to see if they were labeled as Ai and I only found one that had been labeled.

1

Kornaros Mar 26, 2026 +8

CD player.

8

ShadyOperation Mar 26, 2026 +5

For real, I'm all about buying CDs again. Never thought I'd see them come back. If you really like the band and they're not on XYZ service, buy their product.

5

joebesser Mar 26, 2026 +2

Mp3 player.

2

ImnotanAIHonest Mar 26, 2026 +4

Youtube Music is pretty good imo and part of youtube premium. Also not a lot of people know [YT music allows your to upload your own music collection](https://support.google.com/youtubemusic/answer/9716522?hl=en) where you can stream it with no ads and use it in the background, even if you don't have YT premium.

4

raptir1 Mar 26, 2026 +1

I'm currently using YTM, but they are just as inundated with AI music as Spotify. I keep getting recommended new albums from Death - who haven't released an album since 1998.

1

Dear_Afternoon_2600 Mar 26, 2026 +1

Are you sure it's ai and not other people using the band name? I know there was a punk band in the 70s called Death, abd ive run into that issue before where if a band shares a name they will be listed under the same account.

1

ShadyOperation Mar 26, 2026 +2

Anything else, whatever flavor appeals to you. People will debate the topic, do a trial and see which aligns with your needs.

2

djfishfingers Mar 26, 2026 +2

I use Tidal but I also only listen to bands that I know are real people. I don't do random playlists.

2

spue Mar 26, 2026 +1

I switched to Qobuz. Great audio quality and I enjoy the editorial content and recommendations.

1

TheOmegaKid Mar 26, 2026 +1

Get on bandcamp and support some independent artists directly :)

1

ruthlesss11 Mar 26, 2026 +1

So many indie artists don't sell their music on bandcamp and many don't sell digital versions. I love the idea of bandcamp but I keep getting let down

1

fliberdygibits Mar 25, 2026 +8

I don't use spotify and this happens to be one of those things I haven't looked into. Do they pay artists out of a shared pool where they are able to "steal" a bit of the pool by "Being" some of the artists via AI? Edit - reading thru other comments plus a bit of searching answered this. Seems like yes and.... There are lots of reasons I don't like spotify and this is just the next one. I knew they had some AI shenanigans going on but wasn't sure the details.

8

Solomon_Grungy Mar 25, 2026 +10

I love what you’re doing. I wonder if theres a way to track AI slop being posted elsewhere too.

10

gold_and_diamond Mar 25, 2026 +10

None of these platforms care. Amazon doesn't care if some Chinese seller ships poisonous products to other countries. YouTube doesn't care if someone rips off a creator's channel. Facebook certainly doesn't care. Musk certainly doesn't care. If they took the slightest action to prevent this stuff happening, then they're admitting they can prevent it. And there go the private jets and Epstein islands.

10

peridot_zzz Mar 26, 2026 +5

There is a whole chapter or two in the book "Mood Machine" about this phenomenon, in which the author investigated multiple ghost artists and whole royalty-free music labels that are directly consulting with Spotify to reduce the amount of money Spotify has to pay to "real" artists. It's fascinating and perverse, the way unregulated businesses will do anything to make money. A lions share of distribution wasn't enough, they needed creative control too! This is a great tool thanks

5

[deleted] Mar 25, 2026 +5

[deleted]

5

ZombiePartyBoyLives Mar 25, 2026 +15

Unless you have a contract with them or work for them, you likely won't be making money. I saw some chump on another sub complaining that while he finally got his slop monetized on Spotify, the royalties were a pittance compared with what he spent on advertising his channel. Like, you are not a player in their game, bro. lol

15

Hitchie_Rawtin Mar 25, 2026 +6

Beyond ethics, nope.

6

ayoungmanfromtheuk Mar 25, 2026 +2

That's terrible

2

immortalalchemist Mar 26, 2026 +2

Considering how easy it is to generate an AI song that is almost indistinguishable from a real artist, this doesn’t surprise me.

2

theHolyWatha Mar 26, 2026 +2

this is actually wild but not surprising. streaming is getting flooded with algorithm music while real artists fight for visibility. platforms need stronger labeling + discovery rules before trust gets cooked.

2

blixt141 Mar 26, 2026 +2

Delete Spotify ffs.

2

Slow-and-low-15 Mar 25, 2026 +5

I’m sorry, “royalty pool” you say? As in, the artists will only ever get a set max amount. And their comp is whatever portion of that max they’ve earned via streams? *That’s fucked up. Cancel Spotify*

5

ILikeMyGrassBlue Mar 26, 2026 +7

Rights holders get 70% of Spotify’s revenue. The other 30% goes to Spotify. That’s how Spotify has always worked, and it’s really not that bad in theory. The issue is that musicians themselves are rarely full rights holders, meaning they never get that full 70%. But Spotify can’t do anything about that; that’s an issue with labels.

7

StudyPlaylists Mar 25, 2026 +2

It's explained on the "Why this matters" page. From all revenue, Spotify takes its slice (30%). The rest is paid to artists. So money that goes to AI "Artists" is money, that would have gone to real musicians.

2

DinoKYT Mar 25, 2026 +2

Yep and you don’t get to participate in this “royalty pool” until you pass 1K streams per track. Definitely screwing over indie artists in small towns. Spotify SUCKS.

2

Fuck_Your_Cat_Post Mar 26, 2026

Serious question, what should an indie artist with less than 1k streams make? OP claims its .4c per stream so 1k streams would be a $4 payout? How is that necessarily hurting small artists? One coffee a month.

0

DinoKYT Mar 26, 2026 +3

Because if you are publishing your music, you deserve to be paid for every stream, even if it’s a small amount. There shouldn’t be a threshold at which point art is considered valuable or monetary on streaming services. If you spent production money and months of time making an album with 15 tracks and every track has 800 streams, it’s a HUGE letdown to be forced to essentially give your art away for free without a single penny so that AI bots in the pool can get your royalties. In my example, say it’s $4 for every 1K streams like you mentioned. Since each track doesn’t have more than 1K streams, (that’s $4 x 15 tracks) $60 completely not paid to the artist who spent their own time, money and talent producing a product. Do you really think if 800 people listen to my song (made by my hard work), I don’t deserve to accumulate any profit and Spotify should just pocket it all? This would be a different conversation if Spotify didn’t pay-up until a threshold was met, but that is not the case. You are actually losing money the entire time your music is streamed before 1K listens and that profit is never accounted for.

3

Fuck_Your_Cat_Post Mar 26, 2026 +1

I agree with your points, and understand getting paid for your work. Music isn't quite the same as spent labor in that its preserved forever. No matter how much time or effort on a track, it's online as long as its hosted. Do you have any overhead to use Spotify as an artist? Access to their platform, playlists, etc is huge. If you can upload as much music as you want for free I understand a minimum to get paid out. Regardless of how much people enjoy your content, I think people are spoiled by YouTube and the like hosting whatever someone posts for free. What if you made physical art, and Spotify was a museum that features art to their monthly audience? Idt you'd get an exhibit sub 1k viewers if others are pulling in millions. I think the bar is pretty low at 1k monthly listens for how much is listened to each day. Idk

1

DinoKYT Mar 26, 2026 +2

Bro... it isn't hard to grasp. The museum isn't a good example because a single museum/art gallery isn't a monopoly in the industry. It isn't hard to understand the concept that artists deserve compensation. People used to be REQUIRED to purchase music CDs/records in order to listen to a song whenever they wanted to. In what world does it make sense to say "Well... I don't buy individual works anymore and pay $16 a month to a monopoly, so undiscovered artists don't deserve to be paid for their work. Let's just not pay artists and expect them to give us music for free." You write like artists uploading to Spotify is something that should be an honor/privilege lol as if it's a free cloud hosting website. No, people are expected to distribute on the website and then they screw us over. "Thank you Spotify for giving the privilege to upload my art on your platform and not paying me!" said no artist ever. Artist deserve compensation and you should not expect to get unlimited access to small artists hard-work for free. >I think the bar is pretty low at 1k monthly listens for how much is listened to each day. Idk And what percentage of listens each day are only to the top 5% of artists on the platform? If you want to be discovered, you also need to pay Spotify in order to get in their algorithm/playlists... which is money small artists don't have because of policies like this! It isn't free or easy lol When you have multiple small artists (and even major ones) talking about how horrible Spotify treats artists... maybe listen to them!!!

2

Fuck_Your_Cat_Post Mar 26, 2026 -1

You're getting emotional over this and I'm not trying to distress you. If an artist sold zero CDs how much did they make?

-1

DinoKYT Mar 26, 2026 +1

800 streams on a song is equivalent to selling zero CDs to you? Would you expect indie artists to giveaway 1000 CDs before they are allowed to sell a single one? You asked a “serious question,” so I’m giving serious responses.

1

Fuck_Your_Cat_Post Mar 26, 2026

Yeah i appreciate the discourse and perspective. Here's another thing - I'm 1000x more likely to listen to an indie artist or someone I dont know on Spotify compared to buying their CD. I dont think even a sizable portion of people really discover music by buying random CDs let alone individual tracks electronically. If I enjoyed an indie artist, I'd support them directly with merch or another way. I understand your point of getting paid no matter the amount of streams but when the most basic payout (and something i forgot the OP mentioned on their site is that a smaller artist is probably earning less than .4c per stream) is like 4 bucks... I get spotify setting a bare minimum to payout. For example... for issuing a payment, I'm sure it also triggers costs for them to track and manage those funds. It isn't free to deposit cash into people's account. I think it makes sense there is a minimum to payout and I think its like that for most content creation apps like YouTube where you need to hit a minimum before you're eligible to withdraw. And its not like that bar is extremely high if its generate five bucks of revenue. Like thats not going to do anything anyway. Spotify for an indie artist I would think would be moreso for exposure and pushing concert dates and stuff.

0

DinoKYT Mar 26, 2026 +1

As I said, they do not have a threshold like “Make $100 and then you can withdraw.” They actively ignore any profit you would make under 1K streams and every artist is losing the first 1K streams worth of revenue. Payment through exposure for independent artists in any field is ridiculous. That phrase is an actual insult for artists. “Make a painting for me! I’ll post you on my socials for payment.” No. Pay me with money and show you actually value the craft. Just look it up. “[Payment through exposure](https://youtu.be/DOfKWlAjJec?si=8DltD5cy154imfwQ)” is heavily discouraged and nasty by nearly all artists in any field.

1

raptir1 Mar 26, 2026

That's the way it works on all of them, even Tidal which pays artists more. They divide a percentage (usually 70% or so) of their total subscriptions and allocate that to artists.

0

AbsolutesDealer Mar 25, 2026 +1

Streamshare is some bullshit.

1

feltaintfungus Mar 26, 2026 +1

I dated someone who used AI for his lyrics. I don’t know which is worse, really.

1

dmacdaking86 Mar 26, 2026 +1

Or…. Make some ai tracks along with your own music to fight the power. lol

1

thisolddog1 Mar 26, 2026 +1

An app that keeps a list of AI artists on Spotify and auto selected Don’t Play This Artist would be great

1

Reeferologist- Mar 26, 2026 +1

It really is crazy Spotify doesn’t make them inform you if the music is AI or not. Not too long ago I was just listening and letting it play while I was working and I heard this song that I really liked, so I wanted to learn more about the band and they don’t even exist lol

1

seriousbusines Mar 26, 2026 +1

YT Music is pushing similar artists as well. My Discovery playlist this week has had a few. Back to winamp I guess.

1

AltairAlden1916 Mar 26, 2026 +1

I wish I had all the cds I bought 20 years ago. And the ability to grow a collection of music in hard copy. Also maybe an iPod with the essentials. I stream with iTunes and have most of it downloaded. I rarely use an algorithm to find new music. I can’t imagine listening to ai with the amount of decent hardworking talented musicians in this world. This is kind of depressing.

1

blackmoose Mar 26, 2026 +1

That's it? I thought it would be more.

1

Kawakamibosatsu Mar 26, 2026 +1

Cancel your Spotify subscription. I did.

1

PerrinSLC Mar 26, 2026 +1

Is there any way to identify them as AI artists, or to block them in the app? I have zero interest in listening to, or supporting, AI artists on any level. They should be tagged as AI, as it pisses me off I can’t block all AI content from my feed.

1

loganp8000 Mar 26, 2026 +1

F Spotify already !

1

Pithecanthropus88 Mar 25, 2026 -1

Get rid of Spotify. Cancel your subscription. Go to a concert.

-1

dre2112 Mar 25, 2026 +6

Thank you. -Live Nation & Ticketmaster

6

Pithecanthropus88 Mar 26, 2026 -1

Okay, go see a local band.

-1

hectorzero Mar 26, 2026

I’m curious. How is it f****** over small artist. People are clearly listening to the AI stuff because I enjoy it or something I guess. But what makes you believe that if those AI artist weren’t around that they would go find these other bands. Just a genuine question, I don’t support ai music gets paid.

0

giraffevomitfacts Mar 26, 2026 -2

I mean, if Spotify wants to produce sounds with a machine and sell them they can. I don’t see it as siphoning money from human beings.

-2

RMRdesign Mar 26, 2026 -3

I actually don’t mind people making AI music to game the system. Spotify needs to evolve with what’s going on with AI versus suing people.

-3

blyan Mar 26, 2026 -4

Spotify pays out roughly $916,000,000 in royalties per month. So this “massive problem” is around 0.03% of the total amount they’re paying out I don’t disagree that the AI stuff is bit scummy but you’re intentionally leaving out quite a bit of pretty important information here.

-4

InfidelZombie Mar 25, 2026 -12

People clearly like the AI music. Let people enjoy what they enjoy.

-12

Just 50 automated, mass-produced fake artists are siphoning $311k a month from Spotify's royalty pool and hurting real artists. I built a tracker to show the math.

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