Sony Music has asked streaming platforms to take down more than 135,000 songs it says were created by fraudsters using generative AI to impersonate artists on its roster.<\/p>\n
That was first reported by the BBC, <\/i>which cited<\/a> Dennis<\/b> Kooker<\/b>, President, Global Digital Business & US Sales, at Sony<\/strong> Music<\/strong> Entertainment<\/strong>. The target artists reportedly include Beyonc\u00e9<\/b>, Queen<\/b> and Harry Styles<\/b>, with Bad Bunny<\/b>, Miley<\/b> Cyrus<\/b> and Mark<\/b> Ronson<\/b> also likely affected.<\/p>\n Sony’s disclosure came Wednesday (March 18) at the launch of the music industry’s Global Music Report<\/b>\u00a0<\/a>by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry <\/b>(IFPI).<\/p>\n Kooker said, according to the BBC, <\/i>that the \u201cdeepfakes\u201d cause “direct commercial harm to legitimate recording artists\u2026 In the worst cases, [the deepfakes] potentially damage a release campaign or tarnish the reputation of an artist.<\/p>\n “The problem with deepfakes are they are a demand-driven event. They are taking advantage of the fact an artist is out there promoting their music.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony says the 135,000<\/b> tracks it has identified so far are likely only a fraction of what has actually been uploaded. Since last March 2025 alone, the company flagged<\/a> roughly 60,000<\/b> songs falsely attributed to artists from its roster, according to the report. In a submission to the government\u2019s consultation on AI and copyright law, obtained by the\u00a0Financial Times<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0The Sunday Times<\/i><\/a> <\/i>at the time, Sony flagged more than 75,000 AI-generated deepfakes.<\/p>\n “The problem with deepfakes are they are a demand-driven event. They are taking advantage of the fact an artist is out there promoting their music.\u201d<\/p>\n Dennis<\/b> Kooker<\/b>, Sony Music Entertainment<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n The volume is rising as AI tools become cheaper and more accessible, the BBC <\/i>said.<\/p>\n The IFPI reported<\/a> that recorded music revenues grew 6.4% YoY<\/b> in 2025 to USD $31.7 billion<\/b> \u2014 an improvement on the\u00a04.7%<\/b>\u00a0rate of growth\u00a0posted in 2024 \u2014 marking the global industry\u2019s eleventh consecutive year of growth.<\/p>\n The report highlighted two key themes shaping the industry\u2019s next chapter:\u00a0AI innovation<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0streaming fraud<\/b>.<\/p>\n IFPI CEO Victoria Oakley <\/b>is quoted by the BBC as saying: “I think we’ve seen a lot of governments really grappling with this issue because they are trying to square a circle: They are trying to protect creativity and at the same time encourage innovation.<\/p>\n “I’m very optimistic that… in the UK, they [have] decided to pause and think again.”<\/p>\n Streaming fraud, also called streaming manipulation, involves uploading songs under \u201cfake\u201d artists to websites like Spotify<\/b>, YouTube<\/b>, Instagram<\/b> and Apple<\/b> Music<\/b>,\u00a0and artificially inflating play counts to collect royalty payments. The IFPI says AI has \u201csupercharged\u201d the practice significantly, the BBC <\/i>reported.<\/p>\n Unofficially, the industry believes up to 10% <\/b>of content across all streaming platforms is fraudulent. Oakley says she wants streaming platforms to deploy tools that can detect AI-generated or fake music at the point of upload. “I hate to say it, but it’s very simple to fix,” she said.<\/p>\n “I think we’ve seen a lot of governments really grappling with this issue because they are trying to square a circle: They are trying to protect creativity and at the same time encourage innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n Victoria Oakley<\/b>, IFPI<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n She added: “The challenge of identifying and labelling AI material is absolutely the next critical challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Sony\u2019s Kooker noted that French streaming company Deezer<\/b> already has software doing this. The executive said Deezer now categorizes 34%<\/b> of songs submitted to its platform as AI-generated.<\/p>\n “Transparency shouldn’t be optional, it’s the foundation of a fair and sustainable music ecosystem.”<\/p>\n Dennis<\/b> Kooker<\/b>, Sony Music Entertainment<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n “Is it perfect? I’m sure it’s not, but it’s open and it’s transparent, and it allows people to understand what is happening,” Kooker was quoted<\/a> by the BBC <\/i>as saying.<\/p>\n “Without proper identification, fans can’t distinguish between genuine human creativity versus unauthorized, AI\u2011generated content, which risks creating confusion, undermining trust, and impacting user experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n “Transparency shouldn’t be optional, it’s the foundation of a fair and sustainable music ecosystem,\u201d Kooker added.<\/p>\n Last year, Deezer\u00a0filed<\/a>\u00a0two patents for an AI detection tool, which it said can discover \u201cfully AI-generated tracks.\u201d Deezer has since published periodic updates on how many tracks the tool has flagged.<\/p>\n Nearly two months ago, Deezer said it was now receiving\u00a0over\u00a060,000<\/b>\u00a0fully AI-generated tracks<\/a>\u00a0every day, and is moving to license its AI detection tool to the wider music industry.<\/p>\n For its part, researchers at Sony Music Group<\/b>\u2018s parent company, Japan-headquartered\u00a0Sony\u00a0Group<\/b>, have reportedly developed technology to identify copyrighted music embedded in AI-generated tracks. Financial news outlet\u00a0Nikkei Asia <\/i>reported last month that the methods outlined in the research could open a path for songwriters to claim compensation when their work is used without authorization.<\/p>\n The deepfake takedowns highlight Sony\u2019s stance against AI in music. Sony Music was among the major music companies that\u00a0sued<\/a>\u00a0AI music generators\u00a0Suno<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0Udio<\/b>\u00a0in 2024 for \u201cmass infringement\u201d of copyrighted material.<\/p>\n While\u00a0Universal Music Group\u00a0<\/b>and\u00a0Warner Music Group\u00a0<\/b>have\u00a0settled lawsuits<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0Udio<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0partnered<\/a>\u00a0with the AI firm on licensing, Sony has remained notably silent. Warner Music also\u00a0settled<\/a>\u00a0with<\/b>\u00a0Suno in November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The target artists include Beyonc\u00e9, Queen and Harry Styles, the BBC reported, citing Dennis Kooker, president of Sony’s global digital business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":225129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[131318,131029,486,1676,3645,227,130491],"class_list":["post-253377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-deep-fakes","tag-deepfakes","tag-deezer","tag-dennis-kooker","tag-fake-artists","tag-sony-music","tag-streaming-fraud"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253377"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253473,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253377\/revisions\/253473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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