Comment by postalcoder
4 hours ago
AI music has taken over small businesses like coffee shops and restaurants. AI music drives me nuts because, to me, it still is very much deep in an uncanny valley. That said, I can't blame the businesses because they are all (dis)incentive driven.
The music industry has stepped up its efforts globally to crack down on small businesses that play copyrighted music. They actually hire people to go into these places and spot violations.
People blame social media for the death of the monoculture but I think music rights holders have done a fair share of the damage to themselves.
This is all about streaming platforms commandeering royalties away from artists.
The way royalties get assigned is based on a percentage of your listening versus your monthly payment.
For example, spend an entire month listening to Taylor Swift’s new album, she gets the entire royalty share.
But if you listen to the album 100 times but then listen to lofi beats 900 times, Taylor only gets 10%.
The “earnings per stream” number you’ll see cited is only an average and varies greatly because there’s only so much money to go around since your listening is unlimited.
But now you have services like Spotify that are removing real songs from “mood” playlists and replacing them with AI music that directs royalties toward Spotify.
Another factor that has happened: record labels have been working to screw over artists so much that they actually negotiated lower royalty rates with Spotify in exchange for company stock.
Giving up royalties but then instead owning a part of Spotify effectively directs money away artists and toward the labels.
For me personally, I no longer hear the difference between AI generated music and new pop-songs. Not sure what that says about me or the music industry.
> between AI generated music and new pop-songs
I think food is a good analogy here. This is a bit like saying I can’t tell the difference between the McDonald’s that is 90% automated and the McDonald’s that’s 20% automated. You’re still just talking about McDonald’s, which is manufactured and engineered to deliver a very specific taste and flavor.
Pop music, almost by definition, is not innovative. Consider the experimental bleeding edge that pushes the evolution of genres. Eventually, that experimental sound enters the pop cycle. Off the top of my head, Fred Again was innovative in 2022, Kettama was innovative in 2025. Fred’s already pop-adjacent, if not full on directly impacting the pop industry at this point. If you want slightly older examples, I would give you Skrillex circa 2010, or Zedd circa 2014.
This is like how I can't tell the difference between good wine and mediocre wine. It's not a skill I have a desire to develop.
It develops itself once you drink wine frequently enough.
Why don’t they play indie alternative pop music? It’s easier than ever to create, surely there are many bands with almost no audience who would give away their music for free. The reason may be discovery, but they could band together and make a centralized platform.
Because then the coffee shop has to curate it or the band needs to market to the coffee shop.
Incentives are mismatched here - the indie band benefits from being noticed and sought out, the coffee shop wants to set a vibe without distracting or irritating anyone (which music can do simply by repeating, if you don't curate a large enough collection).
So unless your playlist is, like, part of the product you're selling (which it is for a number of coffee shops to be fair), you just look for something like "10 hours of lo-fi beats to study to" and throw it on.
The indie band in France also collect subsidies from "SACEM" AND "SPRE" (and YouTubeurs from "SCAM").
With SACEM, if you have a cafe, then you have to pay 4000 USD per year to support musicians, etc etc.
Of course, this is only broadcasting rights, you have to acquire the music (or rent it) on a B2B platform.
If you play AI Lofi in theory you don't have to, but don't worry that inspectors will find a way to fine you.
Ironically, the human band you are playing will get zero, and it will go to the big rich and popular artists.