More than 1,000 musicians released a silent album in protest of the UK government’s plan to allow AI companies to use copyrighted material without permission. It’s an abhorrent proposal that obviously wouldn’t just threaten musicians but every creative work done by people: writers, photographers, painters,…
Aside from the music industry’s protest, UK newspapers also joined in with their title pages.
Generative AI might be the biggest organised crime in human history. They stole vast amounts of creative work without permission or payment while collecting billions in venture capital money. And they only burn this money. According to The Information, OpenAI lost approximately $5 billion after revenue in 2024. It’s an unsustainable business, despite pouring in billions and billions over the years, with a so-called product that won’t get rid of its hallucinations. And one that accelerates climate change. The United Nations Environment Programme states:
„The proliferating data centres that house AI servers produce electronic waste. They are large consumers of water, which is becoming scarce in many places. They rely on critical minerals and rare elements, which are often mined unsustainably. And they use massive amounts of electricity, spurring the emission of planet-warming greenhouse gases.“
On top of that, these AI companies are run by Trump-bootlicking billionaires, fuelling division and violence across the globe. Their only goal is amassing even more wealth. They see creativity as a nuisance. „I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music,“ said Suno AI’s CEO Mikey Shulman recently. Millions of people who play instruments or sing with no professional ambition certainly beg to differ. But Shulman seems to be a poor soul who never found any creative spark in his life.
Big tech long ago abandoned the idea of actually solving problems. Their products all enshittifcated for the sake of rotten infinite growth.
Creativity is a messy process but valuable in itself—a means to reflect, discover, and distil thoughts and perspectives. In the rationale of Silicon Valley, however, it’s an unnecessary obstacle to overcome. Ultimately, not even the final product, whether it’s a song, an album, a painting, or a story, really matters. They are only a means of a constant wave of content with the only purpose of making numbers go up on a chart.
Janosch Troehler
The culture industry is being driven by data because everything has to be measured so that the algorithms can fulfil their purpose better and better: likes, shares, comments, scrolling behaviour, playback time. Songs and intros are getting shorter; the hook has to come immediately, otherwise people will skip. No time for intricate structure. Shortcuts to short-term success. The creative process gets optimised for the metrics, the algorithm. This metrics-horny, hyper-capitalistic environment is perfectly illustrated by Spotify only paying artists after 1000 plays. „999 Plays? Sorry, your work is worthless.“
I fear we will only see all of this worsen. Our dependence on big tech, which has interwoven itself deeply within our society and everyday lives, can now rampage freely and emboldened as never before. And plans to further unshackle their ultra-libertarian agenda, like in the UK, will bring massive harm to everyone.
There are already proposals on the table ushering in the so-called „Streaming 2.0“ era, a topic I’m currently researching and analysing. And some of the ideas put forward by major labels make Spotify’s 1000 streams policy seem overly generous.
And although it’s still a far-fetched dystopia, I wrote back in 2023 that as it’s no longer required to have any human part in the creative process except for prompting a few AI systems, music labels will eventually make their money from fake artists—or capitalising on their famous artists with artificial songs. Elvis is alive, indeed. As a result, human music creators might find themselves in a losing battle for attention because those who deploy AI in their process can pump out new tracks probably every week.
Of course, the latter is already a reality. I’ve reported on fake artists and AI scams multiple times. Or the outrageous example of Michael Smith, who racked up $10 million in royalty payouts between 2017 and 2024 with AI-generated music and bot streaming.
The recent reporting by Liz Pelly about Spotify’s „Ghost Artists“ was highly enlightening but could also be seen as the first step towards AI-generated slop deliberately added into playlists.
At the same time, seeing significant pushback, as in the „Make It Fair“ campaign, fuels hope. But we can’t just post our way out of it; there needs to be action. By building our own spaces again—away from big social media. By embracing federated alternatives like Bluesky or Pixelfed. By supporting artists as fans in effective ways. And by collaborating to create a sustainable local music scene again.
