Trust & Safety in the Age of AI: What Labels, Distributors and Artists Need to Know

The volume of mass uploads, including AI-generated and low-engagement content, continues to rise. But what’s changing is how the industry responds.

DSPs are tightening their standards, placing greater emphasis on originality, rights ownership, and catalog integrity.

As digital platforms redefine what content gets surfaced, monetized, and supported, Revelator is here to help our clients stay ahead.

A Music-First Approach, Built for the Long Term

For context: in the past 12 months, Spotify removed over 75 million spammy tracks. Deezer now reports that almost 30% of daily uploads are fully AI-generated, with up to 70% of streams for those tracks flagged as fraudulent. Left unchecked, these behaviors dilute the royalty pool — literally diverting payouts away from genuine artists and rights holders.

Against that backdrop, Spotify and Deezer have rolled out some new trust and safety policies

1. Impersonation Policy – Protecting Artists’ Voices

Spotify’s new rules prohibit unauthorized voice cloning, deepfakes, and other vocal replicas. Even if the impersonated artist isn’t named in the metadata, tracks with recognizable vocal deepfakes will be taken down.

Why this matters: unauthorized AI voices exploit artist identity and undermine their creative control. Spotify is clear that only the artist can decide if their voice can be licensed to AI projects. This isn’t about banning technology, it’s about ensuring that choice stays with the artist and protecting their work.

🔗 More on Spotify’s impersonation rules

2. Spam Filtering – Stopping Manipulation at Scale

Both Spotify and Deezer are targeting spam behaviors:

• Mass uploads and duplicates
• Metadata manipulation for SEO
• Uploading tracks just over 30 seconds to trigger royalty payments
• Functional/“noise” audio designed to game playlists

Spotify’s new spam filter flags tracks and uploaders using these tactics, stopping them from being recommended. Deezer goes further, excluding fully AI-generated tracks from algorithmic and editorial recommendations altogether.

For rights holders, this means catalogs that fail to meet basic originality or quality standards risk being sidelined, or in some cases, removed.

3. AI Disclosures – Transparency Through Standards

The third major development is around AI transparency. Spotify has partnered with DDEX and a coalition of distributors, including Revelator, to roll out an industry standard for AI disclosures in music credits.

This framework allows labels and artists to indicate if AI was used in vocals, instrumentation, or production. The goal is not to punish artists using AI responsibly, but to build trust and consistency across the ecosystem.

Why It Matters for You

These aren’t one-off policies. They mark the start of a broader industry shift toward quality, accountability, and transparency. For independent labels and distributors, this means:

• Prioritizing originality and rights ownership in every release
• Reviewing metadata and credits carefully before delivery
• Understanding that fraudulent or low-quality uploads can reduce royalties for everyone
• Preparing to disclose AI use in line with emerging standards

Revelator’s Commitment

At Revelator, we believe protecting the integrity of music isn’t just about compliance — it’s about creating an ecosystem where genuine artistry thrives. That’s why we:

• Contribute to global initiatives like the DDEX AI disclosure standard
• Share resources and education to keep our partners ahead of DSP trust and safety policies
• Actively participate in the Music Fights Fraud Alliance, working alongside the industry to keep music fair and transparent
• Provide tools like our Artificial Streaming Dashboard to our clients to help tehm identify and prevent fraudulent activity

Explore further:

• What is artificial streaming and how to avoid it
• How to spot, prevent, and tackle fraud in music distribution

Our commitment is simple: to ensure that the catalogs you build are respected, discoverable, and rewarded fairly in a rapidly evolving music landscape.