AI generated music barred from Bandcamp • Hacker News Board

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#631

Post by troupo » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:12 PM UTC

mlrtime wrote: post #586

troupo wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly. As I already wrote elsewhere, no one, including the article's own authors, understood a single thing from the article. Spotify doesn't produce its own music. It licenses 100% of its music from external distributors. Apart from a few scammy companies there are dozens of companies who…

>Spotify doesn't pay artists. So Indiy artists can't directly put their music on Spotify? Sorry I have no idea how this works, I guess that's the point of Bandcamp?

> So Indiy artists can't directly put their music on Spotify?

No one can put their music directly on Spotify.

--- start quote ---

https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/getting-music...

Distributors handle music distribution and pay streaming royalties.

Work with a distributor to get your music on Spotify.

# Choose a distributor

See our preferred and recommended distributors: https://artists.spotify.com/providers

These distributors meet our highest standards for quality metadata and anti-infringement measures.

Note: Most distributors charge a fee or commission. Each service is unique, so do a little research before picking one.

If you’re a signed artist, your record label likely already works with a distributor who can deliver your music.

--- end quote ---

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#632

Post by Anamon » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:13 PM UTC

1zael wrote: post #353

This is dumb. The solution for all music platforms should be to add a label for AI-generated tracks or artists so users clearly can disambiguate. It's frivolous to prevent someone from enjoying a piece of art whether AI or human. Furthermore, the line is blurred between what constitutes human vs AI development of music. Most producers today use pre-packaged samples, sequencers, and tracks to generate derivatives. Sur…

I suspect the problem is scale. AI slop can be churned out at an unprecedented rate, and Bandcamp is not a big company, but they'd have to host and serve all of that stuff nonetheless.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#633

Post by ImHereToVote » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:14 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #606

leptons wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sterility of AI generated music will lead to a sterility in creativity of humans if "AI" generated music ever becomes dominant. The world is messy, and human music reflects that. But good for you if your life is so uncomplicated that human-created music seems offensive to you, I guess?

Well let me ask you this - if you want to listen to sounds of the rain in a forest or waves crashing on the beach as you fall asleep(as many people do), do you care if someone actually sat on a beach with a microphone for 4 hours straight, or is it ok if what is effectively white noise is computer generated? It's the same with background music when I work. But like as a specific example, that's a specific track I qui…

Stop trying not to be a strawman!!!1

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#634

Post by troupo » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #584

troupo wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yet another person who plays the bogeyman card of "conspiracy theory" > Even if Spotify is not doing the slightest thing like this, suggesting that they might is... ...textbook definition of conspiracy theory Also note how your entire text is just unsubstantiated claims. Including emotionally charged words like "terrorist cell" that give your words so much weight and meaning.

Your "textbook definition" is BS. A theory that someone conspires is not enough to call something a conspiracy theory. You would not call a prosecutor who accuses someone of "criminal conspiracy" a conspiracy theorist, even though they have a theory that someone is conspiring. A terrorist cell is just another example of a real type of group which obviously conspires. You're not a conspiracy theorist for believing the…

> And for the second time this week, someone demands "evidence" for expressions of distrust.

Funny then that to illustrate your point you use this example: "You would not call a prosecutor who accuses someone of 'criminal conspiracy' a conspiracy theorist". You know what separates criminal prosecutors from conspiracy theorists? They have to provide evidence.

Or this example: "A terrorist cell is just another example of a real type of group which obviously conspires. You're not a conspiracy theorist for believing they exist." Yes, because we have evidence that they exist.

See how this works? A theory with no supporting evidence is a crackpot theory.

For example, I can say anything I want about you. When asked about evidence, I can lapse into demagoguery about terrorist cells or something. Perhaps you are a part of a terrorist cell? Otherwise, why bring them into discussion?

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#635

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:19 PM UTC

beepbooptheory wrote: post #162

BrokrnAlgorithm wrote: post #79

I'm a musician, but am also pretty amused by this anti ai wave. There was recently a post referencing aphex twin and old school idm and electronic music stuff and i can't help bein reminded how every new tech kit got always demonized until some group of artists came along and made it there own. Even if its just creative prompting, or perhaps custom trained models, someday someone will come along and make a genuine ar…

Cf. Holly Herndon's album Proto . This is something people spent a lot of time on, is trained lovingly on only their own stuff, and makes for some great music. It's "AI" but in an almost unrecognizable way to us now: its not attached to some product, and its not about doing special prompting. It is definitely pop/electronic music, but it follows from a tradition of experimentation between what we can control and what…

Holly Herndon's music is original and creative. Unlike most LLM-generated pastiche text, picture or music.

And since it's from 2019, it's not quite the same thing. I like it, unlike the current wave of unwanted LLM slop.

It's original. Of course if 1000 people were doing the same with minimal creative effort and passing it off as something else, that would ruin it.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#636

Post by Zababa » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:25 PM UTC

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #527

CapsAdmin wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe we're talking past each other then. I'm saying I don't agree with the argument that music necessarily needs to have a story to be widely consumed in a positive way. While I personally like it when people put their heart and soul into something, even if the result is technically not very great, it's society who is the ultimate judge of whether that creation benefits them or not. I know that the track I'm…

> I think maybe we're talking past each other then. I'm saying I don't agree with the argument that music necessarily needs to have a story to be widely consumed in a positive way. I can imagine that this is true for a lot of people. There are certainly folks out there who see music as an interesting sensory stimulus. This song makes you dance, this one makes you cry, this other one makes you feel nostalgic. To these…

I don't think appreciating art separated from the author is solipsistic, in fact I'd argue the opposite. Needing a human presence to engage with art is very human-centric. Or maybe that's due to your definition of art? I can be stunned by how beautiful a sunset is, the same way that I am by a painting, even if no human had a hand in that sunset. I can appreciate the cleverness of a gull stealing some bread from a duck the same way I can appreciate the cleverness of a specific music being used at a specific point in a movie. I can shiver at the brutality of humanity watching Night and Fog, just like I can shiver at the brutality of a praying mantis, eating alive a roach.

>Maybe one day machines will be able to make art in the same way humans do: by going out into the world, having experiences, making mistakes, learning, connecting with others, loving and being loved, or being rejected soundly, and understanding deeply what it means to be a living thing in this universe.

I think this is a good description of the process of how some art is created, but not all? Some art is a pursuit of "what is beautiful" rather than "what it means to be human" ie a sensory experience, some art is accidental, some art just is. For some art knowing the person behind is important, to me; for some not; for some it adds to the experience; for some it removes from it.

I would also highlight some small contradiction:

>I can imagine that this is true for a lot of people. There are certainly folks out there who see music as an interesting sensory stimulus. This song makes you dance, this one makes you cry, this other one makes you feel nostalgic. To these people, the only thing that matters is what the music makes them feel. It's a strange, solipsistic way of engaging with art, but who am I to judge?

>Here's an admittedly extreme example, but it's demonstrative of how I personally relate to music. In the wake of the #MeToo movement (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MeToo_movement), some of the musicians I used to love as a teenager were outed as sexual predators. When I found out, I scoured my music library and deleted all their work. The music was still the exact same music I fell in love with all those years ago, but I could no longer listen to it without being reminded of the horrible actions of the musicians. Listening to it was triggering.

That seems to me a case of "the only thing that matters is what the music makes them feel".

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#637

Post by interludead » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

This feels like a sensible line to draw

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#638

Post by interludead » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:35 PM UTC

olivierestsage wrote: post #16

Funny to see this right now. Spotify's promotion of AI music bothered me so much that it has actually pushed me to Bandcamp and the practice of buying music again. It's really fun to build a collection knowing you're supporting the artists, download FLAC files, organize your little "collection" page ... Feels like a renaissance in my relationship with music, the most fun I've had since what.cd. Anyway, love this stan…

There's something genuinely satisfying about owning the music again instead of just passively streaming whatever an algorithm decides to surface

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#639

Post by troupo » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:37 PM UTC

vintermann wrote: post #616

troupo wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify doesn't hire any artists because if it did, major labels would immediately pull their contracts. No one actually understands what's written in this article, including the authors themselves. Also note how you didn't provide a single track that Spotify allegedly pays no royalties for.

The major labels own a good chunk of Spotify directly. Used to be even more. As long as they get their cut they'll jump on any opportunity to screw over their artists (yes I know "unsourced statement" blah blah, sit down lawyers. I won't explain the reasons for my low opinion of these companies right now.) The allegation is that Spotify pays out to entities which are ultimately owned by themselves, or that they get k…

> As long as they get their cut they'll jump on any opportunity to screw over their artists (yes I know "unsourced statement" blah blah,

It's not really unsourced. It's just very rarely talked about. I think you may get an article once every 10 years questioning the actual rights holders and distributors.

I mean, you get people in these discussions on HN that don't even know that Spotify (and other streaming services) don't even have direct contracts with artists and everything is going through intermediaries.

> I remember I found a track a few years ago, by the artist Mayhem. No, not the metal band. The background music artist Mayhem. Which only ever released two tracks. One of which, "Solitude Hymns", happened to get featured in one of Spotify's playlists, and managed to rack up more plays than any track by the more famous metal band at the time.

Thank you! You're the only one who could point out a weird track.

41K monthly listeners for the band. The track got 20 million plays because it was featured.

That's where the gray zone begins: was this band with two songs picked because it is cheaper to include (for whatever reason) or was it just lucky (like some other bands that got big through streaming like Glass Animals).

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#640

Post by interludead » Wed, Jan 14, 2026, 1:38 PM UTC

WD-42 wrote: post #82

olivierestsage wrote: post #16

Funny to see this right now. Spotify's promotion of AI music bothered me so much that it has actually pushed me to Bandcamp and the practice of buying music again. It's really fun to build a collection knowing you're supporting the artists, download FLAC files, organize your little "collection" page ... Feels like a renaissance in my relationship with music, the most fun I've had since what.cd. Anyway, love this stan…

I’ve been doing the same over the last few months. The best part for me is going to record stores again. CDs are SO cheap now, especially used ones. I’ll usually pick a few out of the dollar bin just based on vibes and the cover and rip them when I get home. I’ve found some cool stuff. It’s like a treasure hunt. Don’t miss Spotify one bit.

There's something magical about picking music based purely on a cover or a vague vibe and taking a chance on it