Sony Says It Has Asked Platforms to Remove 260,000 AI Fakes of Its Artists

Sony Music says it had asked streaming platforms to remove more than 260,000 AI-generated tracks imitating its artists by the end of September, nearly double the roughly 135,000 it reported at the end of March, according to the Financial Times and trade coverage. That works out to more than 20,000 takedown requests a month between April and September. Sony described the fight as increasingly an uphill struggle against deepfake tracks that copy its artists' voices and likenesses without permission. Artists named in the reporting include Harry Styles, Adele and Michael Jackson.

Executives also say streaming fraud costs the music industry about $2.2 billion a year, and one analyst quoted in the coverage called AI streaming fraud an epidemic. The proposed NO FAKES Act would create federal protection for a person's voice and likeness and require platforms to remove flagged replicas as soon as feasible, but it is still only a proposal.

This is the next chapter in our coverage of AI and music. In recent days the story has been about whether fully machine-made songs deserve royalties and about a major AI tool adding speech to its song generator. Sony's number is a different question: who owns a human voice, and what happens when anyone can rent a copy of it.

Notice the pattern: the takedowns arrive one request at a time, while the copies are made in bulk.

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Sources: Music Business Worldwide, "Sony Music has now asked platforms to remove more than 260,000 AI deepfakes imitating artists like Harry Styles, Adele, and Michael Jackson" (Oct 5, 2026); Financial Times (Daniel Thomas), original report, as cited by Mediagazer (Oct 5, 2026).