A coalition of nearly a dozen of the biggest record companies in the music business — including the “big three” of Universal Music Group, Sony Music and Warner Music Group — are calling for global music charts to adopt policies that would disqualify many AI slop tracks from consideration.
The companies are calling on the chart companies to introduce new rules that would only allow AI-generated songs to be included if the use of AI is properly authorized and lawful, if the track was substantially human made and if it doesn’t raise concerns of streaming fraud or chart manipulation.
Those stipulations don’t outright disqualify all AI songs — a primarily human created song that lawfully uses AI as a supplemental tool is still allowed — but they’d certainly limit eligibility considerably. The biggest AI music generation platforms still face lawsuits over allegations of mass copyright infringement to train their models, and much of the AI music uploaded to streaming services is linked to streaming fraud.
“Tracks created using generative AI systems have been appearing on streaming services, however many of these have been developed with tools that have been trained on artists’ music without authorisation,” the companies said in a release on Wednesday. “These tracks are also commonly associated with streaming fraud. To tackle this, record companies are driving the development and licensing of AI music services that respect the rights of music creators. Through the implementation of these principles, human creators will have further assurance that tracks manufactured via unauthorised algorithms unjustly built upon their work – or fraudulently promoted – will not be celebrated by industry charts.”
