MusicInfra CEO Björn Lindvall Tells LA Times About the Risks Fraudulent AI Music Poses to Human Artists
August Brown of the L.A. Times called on the music rights expertise of Björn Lindvall, co-founder of Hipgnosis Songs and CEO of rightstech firm MusicInfra, in a story on AI-enabled music fraud.
The news story traces one especially striking recent incident that opens a window on a growing problem for musicians. Stick Figure, a San Diego reggae band, lost out on thousands of dollars in revenue when an AI-modified version of their track went viral.
After the original Stick Figure track gained unexpected radio popularity in South Africa, a fraudster used AI to modify it just enough to evade the tools platforms use to identify copyrighted music. The manipulated track surged in popularity on social media and streaming services, without crediting Stick Figure. The fraudster pocketed the revenue and the clout that should have gone to the original artists, forcing the band and their management to pour resources into combatting the fraud.
Björn Lindvall contributed his perspective on the wider problem of music fraud. “It is growing and a real risk to artists and other rightsholders alike,” he said. “With the ability to modify or generate music, it may well be that we turn millions, or even billions, of people into music creators. However, the amount of data going through the pipes in the music industry will also explode.”
Streaming giants like Spotify and Deezer say they are actively working on identifying and preventing fraud, despite the flood of AI-generated tracks uploaded to their services every day. Spotify recently announced a partnership with UMG to monetize remixes and other modified tracks for the original artists.
Lindvall points out that the essential problems behind AI fraud are challenging but solvable:“The industry has, for the first time since the last paradigm shift of the streaming era, now got the chance of near-perfect attribution if it learns from the mistakes of the last era,” he told Brown. “It is possible to identify AI-generated content and to report on it correctly, but it requires identification to be done at the moment of creation. The broader tech is promising, but the compensation models only work if the plumbing works. Right now, the industry is building faster cars on roads that weren’t designed for them.”
Lindvall’s rightstech firm, MusicInfra, is building essential infrastructure for the modern music industry and solving the biggest, multi-billion dollar problem in the music business - getting rightsholders paid correctly and on time. The company addresses critical challenges in rights management, enabling digital platforms and rightsholders to navigate an increasingly complex global landscape more efficiently.
MusicInfra's modular platform makes it easier for innovative platforms to work with music legally and sustainably while increasing revenue and resources available for products and talent. MusicInfra also sets a new standard for catalog management, providing improved transparency to publishers. This includes real-time visibility, with tailored dashboards providing real-time insights into royalty and payment statuses; automated accuracy delivered via proprietary matching algorithms that validate work-to-recording relationships at scale; and advanced revenue recovery methodology that increases the total royalties claimed by interfacing directly with content management systems across digital platforms.
Read the full story with an L.A. Times subscription: “‘We were just being ripped off’: Musicians lost thousands after AI bootleggers stole their song.”
About Björn Lindvall:
Björn Lindvall, CEO and co-founder of MusicInfra, has spent his career at the intersection of music rights and finance. He previously co-founded Hipgnosis Songs, serving as COO and helping scale the company to $150 million in revenue and $2.7 billion in music IP rights within three years, culminating in its acquisition by Blackstone. Prior to that, he built his foundation in investment banking and finance. Today, Lindvall is focused on building the infrastructure to solve one of the music industry’s oldest and most expensive problems: ensuring rights holders are paid accurately and on time.
About Rock Paper Scissors:
Founded in 1999, Rock Paper Scissors, Inc. is a PR and marketing firm composed of a diverse team of communicators, creatives, and business minds. We have represented thousands of entertainment tech projects from six continents. Our roster includes clients in music technology, sports technology, entertainment technology, wellness tech, consumer electronics, innovative musical instruments and gear, AI music, consumer apps, and much more.
