The psychedelic-rock band King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard has responded in anger and disbelief after discovering that an AI-generated impostor was impersonating them on Spotify. The fake artist, dubbed King Lizard Wizard, had uploaded tracks with identical song titles, artwork vaguely mimicking the band’s surreal cover art and music that borrowed heavily from King Gizzard’s distinctive style. The impostor songs went unnoticed for weeks, even surfacing in users’ Release Radar and algorithmic recommendations.
According to PitchFork, the band’s frontman Stu Mackenzie said he was “trying to see the irony in this situation,” before adding in frustration “Seriously wtf we are truly doomed.” This backlash is especially pointed because the band removed their entire catalog from Spotify earlier this year to protest the platform’s CEO over his investments in military-AI technology. The emergence of the AI clone strikes as crass attempt to exploit the void created by the band’s departure.
Spotify has since removed the fraudulent tracks. A company spokesperson confirmed that the uploads violated its impersonation policy and that no royalties were paid from their streams. Despite the takedown, the incident has fueled concerns about how real artists’ identities and creative output can be co-opted by AI. Critics argue that the episode exposes glaring weaknesses in current detection and protection mechanisms.
This is not just a one off problem. The flood of AI-generated music impersonating real artists has sparked a broader debate across the industry about AI ethics, creative rights and the responsibilities of streaming platforms. Many warn that if platforms like Spotify cannot reliably police this kind of misuse, artists could lose control over their work.
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