Recently, music streaming company Spotify has found itself under the international spotlight for its policies regarding AI artists, ads related to ICE, investment in military AI development as well as long-lasting issues regarding inadequate artist compensation. These have led to the withdrawal of several artists from the platform as well as boycotts against the service.
Spotify has polarized the way people listen to music, but there is a discussion about whether Spotify’s dominant industry position has allowed it to get away with questionable actions without scrutiny.
Spotify’s current terms of service allow the use of AI tools to generate music as long as the AI tool is credited. This means that music generated completely using AI tools has garnered large amounts of success on the platform. AI artists such as Aven, Velvet Funk and The Velvet Sundown have received millions of streams on Spotify.
FHS junior and Spotify user Naomi Castruita is considering switching to YouTube Music in light of the recent controversy.
“I’m completely against AI music,” Castruita said. “I feel like music as an art form shouldn’t be created by AI … it’s just a generic copy and paste of music.”
FHS junior Olivia McCarthy, however, had a slightly differing opinion.
“Generally, I wouldn’t listen to it,” McCarthy said. “It doesn’t bother me if it’s on the app, but art forms just really should be human generally.”
In October 2025, Spotify ran an advertising campaign promoting the government agency ICE on its platform. ICE has been surrounded by controversy for the past few months, so Spotify allowing these ads was met with large amounts of backlash from its userbase, leading to some people boycotting the platform.
Spotify has also been criticized for its level of artist compensation. Spotify has consistently paid artists less than other services for the same number of streams over the past few years. While artists on Spotify will get the equivalent of about $3 for every thousand streams, artists on Apple Music and YouTube can generate around about $4 to $8 per thousand streams.
Spotify’s former CEO Daniel Ek also has a history of investment in AI weapon and defense development company Helsing, of which he has recently been appointed chairman after a decision to step down as CEO of Spotify.
This involvement in weapons development, as well as Spotify’s other controversies, has caused users as well as artists to leave the platform in protest.
Indie band Deerhoof stated their decision to leave the platform in an Instagram post released June 30th.
“We don’t want our music killing people. We don’t want our success being tied to AI battle tech.”
