
Jean-Michel Jarre's rant against Spotify and artificial intelligence
Jean-Michel Jarre accused the Spotify music streaming platform of wanting to "do without artists" by sliding songs created with artificial intelligence into the application's playlists.
French musician Jean-Michel Jarre accused the Spotify platform on Saturday of wanting to "do without artists" by seeking to dilute their songs among songs made by artificial intelligence.
The Oxygene composer spoke at a round table at the National Library of France (BnF), prior to the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence, Monday and Tuesday in Paris. "Safitify's dream would be to do without artists. It's been a while since it's been brewing. Spotify is a bit of the Darth Vader of music, "he accused.
"Fake artists" in Spotify playlists
He was reacting to remarks about the arrival on streaming platforms of fake songs and noises generated by artificial intelligence, increasing in number. According to an American journalist, Liz Pelly, who published an investigative book on Spotify in January, the Swedish streaming giant thus places "fake artists" in some of its ambient music playlists.
"We have always been committed to supporting the growth and development of artists on our platform, with more tools, transparency, data and new channels to retain their audiences," said a Spotify spokesperson. "We are therefore proud of the distance traveled and remain fiercely committed to the discovery and growth of the recorded music industry," he added, recalling the $10 billion donated to rightholders in 2024 alone.
The complex issue of copyright
Jean-Michel Jarre was also very offensive during the debate on the protection of copyright in the face of the use of works to train artificial intelligence tools. "We will not be able to approach the problem of rights with AI as we did with Gafam," he said. "We'll have to invent something. [...] There is a cake, even before these companies make profits, which is their valuation. And culture must touch a share of it."
“Our friends in this room," he said, looking at the AI entrepreneurs, "have understood that we are very well armed, with our gang, not to fight, but to be paid." He referred, as allies, to other participants in the round table, leaders of French organizations for the collective management of copyrights, Sacem for music and SACD for live entertainment. But Jean-Michel Jarre stressed that he himself used artificial intelligence to compose. "I fed the algorithm with my own music," he said.
Source: https://www.vosgesmatin.fr/culture-lois ... tificielle


