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Spotify Takes Down Fake AI Song Credited to Famous Country Singer Who's Been Dead for Years

Blaze Foley died decades ago, but an AI company pushed a song out under his name anyway -- and it's not the only AI-generated song appearing on Spotify.

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Spotify's logo on a phone in front of an AI computer logo.

AI songs are starting to appear on Spotify under existing artists' names. Here's why that's a problem. 

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Country music fans may know Blaze Foley from his outlaw country Austin shows in the '80s, but they wouldn't recognize the track, "Together," that mysteriously appeared under Foley's Spotify profile a few days ago. That's because it's an AI-generated song uploaded by Syntax Error, and the sign of a growing problem in music apps.

AI can easily create songs and imitate certain styles, but in addition to copyright issues, that creates legal problems when AI pretends to be an existing artist. It's not clear what Syntax Error is exactly, but it's certainly not Blaze Foley, who was killed in 1989. The song and the album art accompanying it are fairly obviously AI-generated, drawing the ire of subscribers, as reported earlier by 404 Media.

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It's not Spotify's first run-in with AI controversy. There's also the popular AI band The Velvet Sundown, which has already been banned from music contests after raising questions about the future of artificial music and threats to non-AI-powered musicians. 

There are also reports that fake songs have appeared under the profiles of other real artists in Spotify, like Guy Clark.

"We flagged the issue to SoundOn, the distributor of the content in question, and it was swiftly removed," a Spotify spokesperson told us when CNET reached out to learn more. "This violates Spotify's policies and is not allowed. We take action against licensors and distributors who fail to police this kind of fraud, and those who commit repeated or egregious violations can and have been permanently removed from Spotify."

It seems like Spotify relies on third parties to prevent songs from being uploaded to the wrong artist profile, but questions remain on how this process works. Fans may soon have to start double-checking when a new song drops from popular artists they follow: Is it an AI fake or the real deal from a favorite band?

Craig McDonald, the owner of Lost Art Records, confirmed to CNET that the track was not performed or written by Blaze. Syntax Error doesn't appear to exist outside of Spotify, and could not be reached for comment.