AI is is crossing a border that it shouldn’t – learning from artists and then competing with them
Crossing the AI Frontera
This is a blog about music that crosses borders. Mexican music to the US. West African music to France, Afrobeat to the US and Latin America, reggaeton and K-Pop to everywhere. These are musical forms, songs, and artists that are built to travel beyond their home countries. And they do, and we are richer for it.
But there is another cross-border musical trend that may be making some people richer, but I suspect is making many musicians poorer. That is AI crossing the borders of the music industry.
AI now runs through the music business. On the creative side, generative tools can draft melodies, chord progressions, beats, and even full instrumentals, which many writers use as jumping‑off points to write songs. AI also powers pitch correction, and “smart” mixing and mastering, dramatically lowering costs for independent artists.
So far, so good. Tools for human songwriters and singers. But wait, there’s more.
On the distribution side, recommendation algorithms on services like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music use AI to analyze how you find and listen to music – AI is now a de facto gatekeeper for songs and albums. If your music doesn’t fit the pattern of a majority – or profitable minority – of listeners, it won’t be on the playlists.
So far, troubling. Do you need Chatbot to pick your music? I don’t.
Where it really gets bad is AI-generated music and music videos – the complete crossing of the music industry’s borders by AI.
An AI outlaw country song (which I won’t name) gained 24 million streams on Spotify. The creator was sued by independent artist Bryan Elijah Smith for imitation, who won and got the song taken down by Spotify, until Spotify decided it was too profitable and the law too murky and reinstated the song. After all, AI music generates money. And studies and surveys find that many listeners can’t reliably distinguish AI‑generated tracks from human‑made ones, so why not?
Spotify and the other major platforms now have dozens of playlists of AI-generated music. Many AI songs have over 1 million streams, and their sites boast hundreds of thousands of followers. No music is immune to AI; Mexican music is shot through with AI fake songs, and even mariachi is being cloned by AI creators. Stock‑music providers are experimenting with AI background and “functional” music, raising concerns that cheap AI tracks could erode income for human composers while remaining largely unlabeled to listeners.
There is pushback; SAG-AFTRA, UK unions, even the Mexican Congress have started to build fences around AI music to keep it from learning on human music without consent and payment. And there is a drive to label all AI-generated music as untouched by human talent. The US Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted. Will it help? We shall see. The border has been crossed, but maybe we can deport the worst offenders.
Banner: Screen shot from “AI Music Video Reality Check: The Cost, Time, and Result” by Jessi Frey
Patrick O’Heffernan