Spotify has launched a new feature in beta that lets artists review eligible releases before appearing in their profile.
It follows concerns about AI music used to impersonate established artists on streaming platforms that also appears on their own pages. Folk songwriter Emily Portman was one such artist forced to act when alerted to an impersonator using her profile.
“Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse,” said a Spotify For Artists blog post. “That’s not the experience we want artists to have on Spotify, and that’s why we’ve made protecting artist identity a top priority for 2026.”
Spotify described it as a “first-of-its-kind solution to a problem that’s affected streaming for years”. It follows the streaming giant's September 2025 measures to tackle AI slop in order to protect real artists.
“In the streaming age, it's easy to deliver music to dozens of streaming services and digital retailers at the same time,” stated the post. “Open-access distribution channels have lowered the barrier for independent artists to share music with the world, promote collaborations easily, and transfer music between distributors seamlessly. But that openness comes with gaps that bad actors can exploit.”
Music has been landing on the wrong artist pages across streaming services, and the rise of easy-to-produce AI tracks has made the problem worse
Spotify For Artists
It means that a release by the wrong artist can appear on a profile across streaming services, due to a metadata mix-up, another artist with the same name, or someone maliciously attaching their music to a profile. That can have a negative impact on the actual artist’s catalogue.
Artist Profile Protection now adds a review step before releases go live on a profile.
“For the first time on any music streaming service, we’re giving you the ability to review and approve or decline releases delivered to Spotify from most providers,” stated the blog post. “To protect your artist identity and prevent listener confusion, only the releases you approve will appear on your artist profile, contribute to your stats, and show up in recommendations to your listeners.”
The new feature builds on Spotify reporting tools already in place.
To help legitimate releases move smoothly and to save time, artists will be assigned an artist key: a unique code to share with trusted providers. It means the release is automatically pre-approved and goes live as normal.
Throughout the beta trial, Spotify will collect feedback from artists using Artist Profile Protection before rolling it out to all artists. Misattributed tracks will still be able to be reported by all artists as usual.
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