Music marketplace Bandcamp bypasses AI disclosures and obtuse policies to announce a wholesale ban on AI slop

One of the internet’s largest music marketplaces has banned content “that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI”. Bandcamp announced the new policy today, which also prohibits the use of AI tools designed to “impersonate other artists or styles”.

Here are the guidelines, straight from Bandcamp:

• Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp.
• Any use of AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles is strictly prohibited in accordance with our existing policies prohibiting impersonation and intellectual property infringement.

The announcement comes after a surge in awful AI-generated music acts last year. The most infamous was probably The Velvet Sundown: at its peak the non-existent psych-rock four-piece was attracting 500,000 monthly listeners, but now generally only attracts around 160,000. Mind you, that is still a heck of a lot, especially for music so bland it sounds unmistakably like AI (though the same could have been said for Wolfmother in 2005, had generative AI existed back then).

Bandcamp isn’t a subscription streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music, but it’s worth comparing policies. Spotify is lenient when it comes to AI-generated music, though it has announced it’s working on AI disclosures for music—probably something like Steam’s mandatory AI disclosures, though with “industry-standard credits”. Apple Music has been less transparent, though like Spotify and Bandcamp, it unambiguously forbids AI-generated impersonations.

It’s a welcome and bold move on Bandcamp’s part, though I’m sure it won’t be long before the “wholly or in substantial part” clause is tested. Spotify is often criticized for its ruthlessly low royalty payouts and algorithmic sleights of hand, but it’s also terrible because it’s flooded with irredeemable AI filler, not to mention the production companies it reportedly uses to fill its playlists with muzak, all the better to dampen its already-miserly royalty payouts to actual artists. (It’s a bad company and a bad service and I think you should stop using it).

Bandcamp managed to escape a brief stint under Epic Games in 2023, and it’s probably for the best, because its policies might not be well-received by Epic boss Tim Sweeney. Last week Sweeney dismissed the need for AI disclosures, and in November, defended the use of AI-generated voices in Arc Raiders.

As Tyler Wilde put it last week, it’s not weird to want AI disclosures on games. As for AI use in general, Mollie Taylor puts it bluntly: It’s more important than ever to call out developers for egregious AI usage if we want videogames to remain interesting.