Solutions for All but Artists

Last week streaming platform Tidal announced an AI music policy to go into effect July 15. Its tenets are simple:

Tidal will identify and tag AI-generated music in our app. Listeners will see an “AI” badge next to music we detect as wholly AI-generated.

Tidal will not tolerate AI-generated music that impersonates an artist or group, or that facilitates fraudulent activity. We’re implementing automatic tools to remove these releases immediately and on an ongoing basis.

Tidal will not allow music that is 100% AI-generated to be monetized. No royalties will go to such releases, nor will AI-generated uploads be eligible for direct-to-fan sales.

These are baseline rules that all platforms should follow. But among the larger players there has been much more activity directed at licensing and profiting from AI-generated music than there has been around building guidelines for its use like Tidal is enacting.

However, even with such sensible practices there remains a fundamenta…