Label giant Universal Music Group (UMG) has brought a federal lawsuit against digital music distributor DistroKid, on the grounds of deceptive trade practices, and copyright infringement.
The “deceptive trade practices” charge appears to focus on AI-created music, which the plaintiff says has fueled DistroKid’s rapid growth. The rapid growth metrics include distributing roughly 40% of all new music in the world, a staggering metric which is claimed by the company itself. If true, it means that DistroKid handles digital distribution for about four million artists according to Music Ally (HERE).
DistroKid recently (July of this year) sold a majority stake to private equity firm CVC Capital for a reported two billion dollars.
Surveys have shown that consumers do not like “AI slop,” but at the same time cannot distinguish it in blind listening tests. To us that means listeners do not approve of it on principle, but do inadvertently consume it — mostly without complaint, we speculate. One recent study revealed that 97% of listeners cannot distinguish a fully AI-created track from a human-made song.