An indie band from Milton Keynes in the UK says AI may have lifted their unreleased cover of a Billie Eilish song and turned it into a full track on Spotify without their consent.
Torus had been working on a grunge-style cover of Ocean Eyes after a short performance clip began gaining traction on TikTok. The band planned to release the full version later, hoping to build on the growing attention.
But before they could do that, they say a strikingly similar track appeared on Spotify under the name Independent Lemon, an account known for uploading covers and with little public information attached to it.
‘No soul’ in the machine
According to the band, the Spotify track opens with what sounds like their original TikTok clip and then continues for several minutes beyond it. Singer and guitarist Alfie Glass initially thought a real person had covered their version, but drummer Jack Orr spotted the digital fingerprints.
“It took me a minute to realise that came from our initial clip, someone had just taken that clip and looped it a few times, but then I think AI had done something to it — it added a riff or something,” Orr told the BBC.
Orr further expressed his distaste for the technology’s role in the creative process, stating, “I don’t really think AI in music is great. It kind of loses the soul of music. But I think it’s more the crediting thing that is the important part.”
The rise of a ghost artist
Independent Lemon is a verified Spotify artist with over 670,000 monthly listeners despite having no social media presence, no record label, and no history of live performances. The account has uploaded roughly 100 tracks over the past year, mostly covers of hits by famous artists.
While the tracks are popular, experts say they bear the hallmarks of machine learning. Simon Holland, a professor of music and human-computer interaction at the Open University, noted that while it is hard to be certain, the vocals and music in such tracks are often “less clear.”
“Generally, the quality can be not that good, but if you put in a good demo of music you had created and asked it to do a demo in a certain style, it could produce something quite polished,” Holland explained to the BBC.
Spotify pulls the plug
In a win for the indie group, the streaming giant has taken action. After Torus reported the infringement, Spotify confirmed it had investigated the claims. “Our team looked into this and has removed the reported track,” a Spotify spokesperson told the BBC.
The incident highlights a growing trend in the industry. According to eWeek’s report from September, Spotify has removed 75 million AI-generated spam tracks in the last 12 months alone, as platforms struggle to protect human creators from being ripped off by high-speed algorithms.
As synthetic performances creep into film, music, and art, many A-listers warn that the industry may be drifting toward a future in which perfection replaces personality and creativity loses its human core.