On September 10, the Brooklyn punk band Lathe of Heaven released a new single called Riding High on its verified Spotify page. Fans instantly noticed the track sounded nothing like the group. The vocals did not belong to lead singer Gage Allison. The album art also clashed completely with the band's established visual style and logo.
Lathe of Heaven did not write, perform, or authorize Riding High. A reporter created the track using a basic prompt in the AI music generator Udio. The reporter published the song directly to the official Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music pages of Lathe of Heaven without the knowledge of the band.
This security gap relies on a glaring loophole in digital music distribution to streaming platforms. The loophole has persisted for years. Creators of low quality AI music now widely exploit this vulnerability.
Anyone can easily hijack a real artist Spotify page and flood it with AI-generated tracks. Unsuspecting listeners click the songs expecting authentic music from favorite artists. Scammers collect royalty revenue generated from these streams by piggybacking on established popularity.
Various instances of this scam appeared previously. 404 Media identified and replicated the exact loophole used by scammers. The process proved trivial to execute.
Music streaming platforms and digital music distributors currently refuse to take responsibility for the issue. The exact distributors involved and their specific remediation timelines remain unknown based on the current reporting.
