Tidal has announced an AI policy aimed at protecting artists and their crafts, as AI music generation tools continue to improve both in speed and quality.
According to the music streaming platform, AI-generated music will be accepted, but these tracks will be held to a "higher standard" of content integrity. Next month, the company plans to auto-identify and tag these uploads. Listeners will spot a special icon next to content that algorithms flag as 100% AI-generated starting mid-July, and the platform hopes to expand this tag to partially generated songs as detection tech improves.
Any AI music that exploits an artist's voice or likeness will be taken down, and Tidal will immediately block tracks associated with fraudulent activity, which includes artificial streaming and deceptive content that interferes with real creators. And finally, music that's 100% AI-generated will not be monetized. Tidal said there is "ongoing debate" about whether certain licensed synthetic models deserve payouts, so it's possible that this part will change in the future.
We acknowledge the ongoing debate regarding whether certain AI-generated music (e.g. AI-generated music developed from fairly and properly licensed models) should be entitled to earn royalties.
This debate will continue as the technology advances and rightsholders and AI music platforms develop licensing models. Tidal's priority is ensuring royalties go to original works directly produced, written, and performed by people. We will therefore not knowingly attribute royalties to music we identify as wholly AI-generated.
Streaming platforms are absolutely getting flooded with AI-generated music because of how easy it is to pump out endless tracks every minute. To give you an idea of how "bad" it is, Deezer alone reported that synthetic uploads now make up about 44% of its daily intake, which translates to roughly 75,000 automated tracks hitting its servers every single day. Interestingly, Deezer found most people cannot tell the difference between human and machine creations, with an Ipsos study revealing that 97% of listeners failed to spot the AI-generated tracks.
Spotify's CEO recently pushed back against listeners who call AI music "slop," urging people to stop using the term and instead embrace the creative potential of AI music. The Swedish platform partnered with Universal Music Group to test "legal and controlled" generative AI tools that let subscribers remix songs with AI.
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