Beatport has become the latest online platform to ban AI-generated music.
The music store confirmed its new policy in an announcement which ways that it has updated its content guidelines to prohibit purely AI-generated tracks. Ones that have been created with ‘the assistance’ of AI will now also be tagged as such.
It comes after a deal between Beatport and Beatdapp, a software developer that specialises in music fraud detection, but another driver of the policy is customer research – 60% of Beatport users said that wouldn’t play AI-generated music in their sets, whilst 77% shared a "firm preference" for human-made music. Only 8% said they were open to playing AI-generated music.
In a statement, Beatport’s CEO, Matt Gralen explained the thinking behind the move: "Beatport exists to serve DJs, and empower artists and labels. While new production techniques have driven electronic music forward since the beginning, there is a difference between a tool that assists human creation and a system that replaces it entirely. Beatport is built on the former."
It comes as other streaming platforms and online music marketplaces have toughened up their stances on AI slop. Bandcamp has already banned all tracks made “wholly or in substantial part” using AI, whilst Tidal has blocked royalties from any tracks it has identified as being generated entirely by AI. Last week Spotify announced that it would start using an AI persona badge on acts that were AI creations.
The problem of AI slop – rivers of low-quality artificial musical gak created by nefarious individuals looking to cream royalties – has been a live one for anyone using online platforms these past few years. Is it too soon to hope that the platforms themselves are starting to get on top of the issue?
You can read Beatport’s whole statement on their website at beatportal.com.
