Spotify Unveils 'SongDNA' and Strengthens Artist Verification; 2025 Payouts to the Music Industry Top a Record $11 Billion

Spotify has announced 'SongDNA,' a new feature that lets users trace a track's production background and collaborations. It also disclosed that its 2025 payouts to the music industry reached a record-high of over $11 billion, signaling plans to strengthen artist verification and credit attribution. The move draws attention as a DSP advancing credit visibility and AI countermeasures on two fronts.

'SongDNA' is described as a feature that, starting from a given track, lets listeners trace toward other works by the artists and producers involved in its creation. By making it possible to dig into the network of creators behind a song, the aim is to raise the value of credit information.

As streaming has spread, how to make visible the contributions of the diverse people involved in production has become an industry challenge. Improving credits is positioned as an issue tied to fair royalty distribution and to countermeasures against AI-driven impersonation and low-quality content.

Strengthening credit visibility also shines a light on the contributions of behind-the-scenes roles such as composers, arrangers, and producers. Being able to trace creator networks may give rise to listening behavior anchored not in individual tracks but in 'who was involved.'

Platform-side credit improvements and AI countermeasures are not irrelevant to independent creators. Accurately registering and managing one's own production credits becomes a prerequisite for benefiting from such new features.

From ZEN's editorial perspective, organizing credit information directly ties to the basic fitness of distribution practice. At ZEN CREATIVE LAB, properly managing song metadata and credits is valued as a theme that serves both rights protection and discoverability for registered artists.

Sources: K-tai Watch, Spotify Newsroom, PR TIMES, and others