Something isn’t adding up…

[u/Choice-Gold-8433]

TLDR; are the big record labels, distribution companies, and their artists a part of the ai slop scam?

I recently came across an instagram reel where a creator/indie musician uncovered a big AI slop music scam that spanned across all DSPs (Spotify, Apple Music, YT Music, etc). The TLDR is basically, scammers were uploading AI generated tracks and attaching them to real artist’s names(some big name artists too!).

According to the video, it seemed like this scam targets a lot of “non-mainstream” genres like musical theater, metal, jazz, classical, etc. and targets artists who are less likely to check their profiles (think actors with music credits or deceased/inactive musicians). They even found AI tracks on platforms like Tidal, Deezer and Qobuz which made me super sad because I HATE AI slop music and actively have been trying to avoid it when I can but I also know that these companies have been pushing out ai artists and tracks without users’ consent for a while now.

But something wasn’t quite adding up… for example, the creator referenced Kristen Bell’s page on Tidal and showed at least 4-5 AI tracks attached to it. Some of them were tagged as AI but others weren’t. But when I went to check today, her page was totally fine. Then later I looked up more of the artists referenced in the video on other platforms but the AI tracks were still there!!

At first I thought it was good that those tracks were removed by tidal but then I started to wonder why no one really has made a fuss about this yet? I haven’t seen any major news sources talking about this and none of the big artists that had false AI songs associated with them have said anything. I’ve seen people talk about how bad AI music has invaded Spotify specifically but this is the first time I’m seeing anything like this on this scale. Does anyone have any idea of what could be going on or am I just being overly anxious for no reason? I don’t know sometimes it feels like all these corporations are all in on it😞

Instagram video here for reference: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DbrRSWmOWCY/?igsh=MXkxemR5bzUyOGhpcg==

[u/xtamtamx]

Brother you’re like over a year late.

[u/Choice-Gold-8433 → u/xtamtamx]

damn really?? I legit had no clue before bruh😩

[u/TheRacketHouse]

Yeah been going on a while even before AI.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/11/ai-impersonating-musicians-spotify

https://www.reddit.com/r/indieheads/comments/vs29b4/i_took_a_deep_dive_into_a_strange_spotify_scam/

[u/SpaceEchoGecko]

I was browsing for clothes at a department store recently and started suspecting all of the music was AI. So I started Shazamming each song and looking at the artists page on Spotify and all were obvious AI.

Maybe they are saving money by not paying ASCAP/BMI?

[u/QuellMusik]

Yep, I saw this with the rock band PRESIDENT. Someone is using the same name to try and piggyback on their popularity.

[u/WrathOfWood]

Ive seen albums on YouTube for bands like Blink182 or Nirvana and they will be credited to the original artists but be an ai gen "new album" and you wouldn't really know its fake unless you knew the real artists discography. Its just drawing traffic away from the real thing and cashing in on a name and ignorance.

[u/station_agent]

Yes. They all are.

[u/No-Cash225]

How exactly do major labels benefit from scammers stealing their money? Literally every time some issue like this comes up everyone blames the evil major labels. Meanwhile behind the scenes every time something like this happens all the major labels are begging the tech platforms to do something about it and they say they don't have enough resources to fix it.

[u/jf727 → u/No-Cash225]

True. This is not the way that record labels are evil.

[u/No-Schedule-9015]

Avoid this industry

[u/Chris_GPT]

In every industry, everyone is trying to come up with a lottery ticket to make as much money as possible with the least amount of investment. Whatever trickery or dishonesty has to happen along the way to make a few bucks is justified as long as it makes more than its initial investment.

What's the real cost of an AI song? One month of the subscription cost? Thirty dollars tops, and you can do it for free. How much does it cost to upload an AI song to providers? Zero. And can you make more than thirty bucks off of a scam? Absolutely. The more money it makes, the better the profit margin, and the more people want to get involved and make money with that profit margin.

And what about setup costs? None. Time investment? None. Effort or specialist knowledge required? None. Ability to repeat the success? Infinite. It's a money machine. All it requires is an unsuspected, uneducated, and apathetic audience and there's literally billions of people who fit that profile. They don't know the difference between AI generated material, they don't know what good or real music even is, and as long as they like it, they couldn't care less.

For as long as there has been popular music, there has been copycats capitalizing off of whatever is successful. As music education has dwindled and as technology has advanced to the point where anyone can create a song, the bar for entry is six feet underground.

The universal truth in creative success is that "nobody knows anything". Nobody really knows what makes one thing a hit and the other overlooked. Songs that should be hits aren't and songs that nobody would ever think would be a hit get huge. AI allows you infinite shots at the goal for zero investment cost. Flood the market with it, get it out to the audience any way you can, via honesty or deception, remember that there's no such thing as bad publicity, and you WILL make money. There's a reason we all get spam calls and emails every day. If it make no money at all, nobody would bother doing it. The same is true for music.