Photo Credit: Steve Johnson
Last week, Spotify reportedly blocked new releases from Boomy and pulled several existing tracks made with the AI music generator. Now, Boomy has announced that the “curated delivery” of its creations to the platform “has been re-enabled.”
Five-year-old Boomy just recently reached out to Digital Music News with word of the distribution pause’s end, though Spotify didn’t appear to have addressed the matter with a public statement at the time of this writing. Despite the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence music – and the majors’ reported efforts to stem the tide of certain AI works – the disruption in the Boomy-Spotify relationship is said to have resulted from fake streams.
“Supporting artists and creators who use the Boomy platform is our top priority,” a spokesperson for the Berkeley-headquartered AI company told DMN. “Boomy is categorically against any type of manipulation or artificial streaming. We are working with industry partners to address this issue and restart the distribution of Boomy artist content on the Spotify platform.”
Notwithstanding these comments, Boomy when asked opted not to disclose how much of its music had in fact been removed from Spotify. But the disruption doesn’t look to have seriously affected the service’s unprecedented output; users have during the past five days created an astonishing 111,474 songs, according to figures displayed on the platform’s website, upping the total to 14.53 million.
And as mentioned at the outset, Boomy has indicated that it and Spotify have put the fake-stream controversy in the rearview.
“We are pleased to share that curated delivery to Spotify of new releases by Boomy artists has been re-enabled,” the platform recently penned on social media. “Supporting our artists and creators who use the Boomy platform is our top priority, and we greatly appreciate your patience these past few days.”
Once again at the time of this writing, Boomy’s Spotify playlists – including but not limited to This Is Boomy (currently with 52 songs), a lo-fi option (84 songs), an EDM variation (62 songs), and an ambient choice (65 songs) – were live.
Of course, Boomy is hardly today’s only AI music generator, and some reports have suggested that all manner of (extremely similar) “songs” are racking up streams on Spotify and elsewhere. Additionally, an expanding collection of AI-powered soundalike works are still generating millions upon millions of cumulative plays on YouTube and social media, while Grimes has embraced the quick-evolving trend and allowed others to create tracks featuring an AI depiction of her voice.
As of last Wednesday, north of 15,000 individuals had already used Grimes AI, according to the Canadian artist’s manager, and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) last week launched a formal investigation into AI’s impact on the economy.