Preferential contracts to AI-gen music makers is equivalent to "internally produced music" in my mind, even though they're not technically equivalent.

`==` vs. `===` essentially

That's fine until, for example and by analogy, you go to the store to buy beer, and you don't particularly care for IPA, but IPAs have crowded out half the beers that used to be there including the one you used to sit back and enjoy.

The problem with that approach is when what people like impacts other people negatively. If your habits don’t make things worse for others, have at it!

Oh I do! But I'm also a (failed) musician so a bit bitter (lol). Still do it for fun, though!

The hardest pill to swallow as a musician is that despite everyone who ever listened to you telling you you're great, despite being in a band and playing shows, despite maybe even selling some merch...if you are not in the top 1%, you probably will never even get chance to play a show that might put you on someone meaningful's radar.

> The thing is, you aren't entitled to distribution.

That applies to people spamming AI slop too. People are right to complain about spammers. Platforms are right to try to stop spam, even though everyone knows that spam is a problem that is never going be solved.

> Most musicians who make it these days work really hard at doing live shows, or growing a following on tiktok.

Live shows, by their nature, have almost zero reach. A performance for 40 people takes place once in a single location at a specific time and then it's over. You're either there when it happens or you missed it. A song on youtube or bandcamp can be heard by millions quickly over a few weeks or gradually over years. Social media was a massive boon for musicians.

Sadly, it will get substantially harder to grow a following on tiktok or any other social media platform if those platforms are flooded with AI generated garbage. Real artists will be harder to find. Anyone doing anything new will be drowned out by AI regurgitating everything old. When creative people can't succeed, the creativity they'd inspire in others is lost and everything stagnates.

I feel that human artists as a class are more entitled to distribution than generated slop.

And decisions like Bandcamp's above reflects essentially the same view.

That's not how discoverability works. If it becomes too much of a chore to sort through the swamp people will often just opt for whatever is popular.

Many people don't care because it sounds like music.

It sounds like music, because it was generated by a model that was trained on actual music.

It is music that has been chewed up and regurgitated. It provides no benefit to the actual artists whose music fed that model.

I have not met a single person offline who wants more AI music

but people do want it. people who listen to top 40 want slop. most people want slop