Music is becoming easier to manufacture, and the music industry may be making a catastrophic mistake by confusing abundance with progress.
I have spent enough time around music to know that a song’s value cannot be measured by how quickly it can be produced.
A melody can stop you in your tracks, a pause can leave you aching for the next note, and a voice can make a stranger feel understood.
These experiences come from human creativity, with all its imperfections, frustrations, and unexpected flashes of brilliance.
We risk losing something irreplaceable if we allow technology’s ability to generate music to dictate what the industry values.
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As reported by the Chicago Tribune, artists in Chicago are bringing this fight into public view through a planned two-day streaming boycott [October 26 and 27], targeting services such as Spotify and Apple Music.
Their message, “Human music only. Press pause on AI,” turns a complicated debate about technology and copyright into a direct economic challenge.
If the industry will not listen to the people creating its music, perhaps it will listen when those people and their audiences stop generating revenue.
AI Music Is Flooding Streaming Platforms
The music streaming service Deezer reported in July that fully AI-generated tracks accounted for more than half of its daily music uploads at peak levels in June, averaging approximately 90,000 tracks a day.
Its data also showed that AI-generated music represented just 1 percent to 3 percent of total streams on Deezer, despite the extraordinary volume of uploads.
Up to 85 percent of streams on fully AI-generated tracks had been identified as fraudulent in 2025. The numbers expose an industry confronting a flood of content whose sheer volume can obscure the interests of genuine creators.
My concern extends beyond the technology itself. We are already losing artists, and the economics of making music have become even more difficult for many people trying to sustain a career.
A study by the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and PMP Strategy projected that nearly a quarter of creators’ revenues could be at risk by 2028 under its modeled conditions, potentially amounting to €4 billion [approximately $4.5 billion] in annual losses.
The consequences reach songwriters, session musicians, producers, and emerging performers who depend on creative work to pay their bills.
Human creativity has a quality that output statistics cannot capture. Consider a composer who introduces an instrument for a few seconds, then leaves it out until the final passage.
Its return can move an audience precisely because the music has made room for anticipation. A generative system can reproduce patterns and produce technically impressive arrangements, but reproducing the ingredients of an emotional experience is different from understanding the human choices that give it meaning.
Human Creativity Still Matters
I often think about Mozart and Beethoven as an illustration of this difference. Mozart’s extraordinary fluency and Beethoven’s struggles with composition produced very different musical experiences.
Beethoven’s difficult, unconventional work reminds us that creative achievement can emerge through frustration, experimentation, and the refusal to follow the easiest path.
A system trained to reproduce familiar patterns risks rewarding what already works, leaving less room for the strange idea that eventually changes music.
There is a future in which AI becomes a useful instrument for artists, helping them experiment and expand their capabilities while preserving their rights and livelihoods.
There is also a future in which platforms become saturated with inexpensive synthetic content, human musicians struggle to earn a living, and audiences gradually lose sight of the labor behind the songs they love.
The difference will depend on the choices made by the people controlling the technology, money, and distribution.
Every listener has a stake in those choices. Music accompanies our most personal experiences, from falling in love to grieving someone we have lost.
We carry songs across generations because they connect us to people, places, and moments that matter. Protecting the people who create that music is a cultural responsibility, even for those who have never picked up an instrument.
I understand why asking consumers to stop streaming for two days is a difficult sell. People have busy lives, and missing a few songs may seem inconsequential.
The point is to make the reason visible. A temporary boycott can communicate that listeners care about who makes their music, how it is produced, and whether the people behind it can afford to keep creating.
What Streaming Platforms Must Do Next
The industry must respond with concrete commitments.
Streaming executives should establish transparent AI labeling requirements, protect artists’ rights to consent to the use of their work in training systems, and develop royalty policies that prevent synthetic content and fraudulent streams from eroding legitimate creators’ earnings.
They should consult working musicians directly and publish measurable progress on these commitments.
Artists have been warning the industry about the consequences of unchecked AI adoption. The time for a preemptive response has passed, and the cost of ignoring those warnings will continue to rise.
Executives who profit from music have a responsibility to protect the people who make it possible. Listeners, meanwhile, can support artists directly, attend live performances, and make conscious choices about where their money goes.
The question is simple. Do we want a music industry that can generate an endless supply of songs, or one that allows human beings to build lasting careers through their creativity?
The answer could be determined by what the industry chooses to protect today. Executives must act, and audiences must make their expectations impossible to ignore.
Craig Anderson is the founder of Craigman Digital, Inc., a company working in music production and digital media, including video archiving, master delivery, and 4K music video restoration.
The views expressed in this article are his own.