My favourite band has AI merch but I’m not sure if all…

The Milton Keynes-based indie band Torus recently discovered that a viral snippet of their performance had been misappropriated and expanded into a full-length track using generative AI. After a clip of the band covering Billie Eilish's Ocean Eyes gained traction on TikTok, a nearly identical version appeared on Spotify under the artist name Independent Lemon. The band members noted that the track began with their original audio before being extended, with the AI seemingly adding instrumentation and riffs to mimic the group's style.

What happened

Torus, consisting of singer and guitarist Alfie Glass and drummer Jack Orr, spent approximately one month recording their own studio version of the song, only to find that the AI-generated track had been uploaded to Spotify by an account with no social media presence or record of live performances. Independent Lemon, which boasts nearly 700,000 monthly listeners and has released roughly 100 singles in the past year, appeared to have used generative technology to predict and expand upon the band's original teaser.

Professor Simon Holland of the Open University, an expert in AI and music, noted that while it is difficult to confirm the use of AI with absolute certainty, the tracks exhibited common hallmarks of synthetic production, such as diminished clarity in vocals and music. The band expressed frustration over the loss of creative agency and the lack of credit, arguing that the process stripped the music of its soul. Following the band's report, Spotify removed the track from its platform. The incident highlights growing concerns among artists regarding the unauthorized use of their work to train or prompt AI models for content generation.