Photo Credit: Nahrizul Kadri
One AI audio avalanche later, the RIAA, A2IM, IMPALA, and several others have introduced a program to label machine-generated tracks on streaming services.
The mentioned organizations, besides the IFPI, the Worldwide Independent Network (WIN), the Recording Academy, the Human Artistry Campaign, and SAG-AFTRA, unveiled that to-the-point program today. At the top level, the entities have proposed tagging recordings as “AI-Generated” and “AI-Assisted” moving forward.
These tags will take the form of two suggested square-shaped icons: One, for straight artificial intelligence outputs, prominently featuring “AI” in all caps, with the other, for AI-assisted recordings, positioning the lowercase “ai” towards the square’s bottom.
As many will recognize, there’s sure to be a bit of debate about what constitutes an AI-assisted recording. In the organizations’ own words, audio will fall into this category if it “was created substantially by humans and expresses human creativity; however, generative AI was used for some expressive elements.”
Additionally, humans must have “performed the lead vocal and primary instruments” for a track to receive the AI-Assisted, not AI-Generated, label.
Regarding the use of “recordings,” the RIAA and others made clear that their “system does not cover the use of generative AI in lyrics, composition, music videos or cover art at this point.”
And with the labels expected to become available “in the near future,” all eyes are on the rollout. Unsurprisingly, given the high-profile organizations behind the push, talks are said to be underway “with digital music services, distributors, aggregators and standard-setting bodies on industry-wide implementation.”
Right on cue, DIMA president and CEO Graham Davies, whose organization reps DSPs like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music, in more words responded to the proposed labels by calling for the industry to step up its metadata game.
“DIMA has long advocated for the creators, owners, and distributors of music to provide accurate and timely metadata on all music released and distributed to streaming services,” said Davies. “We are following today’s announcement closely and look forward to receiving more detailed and accurate AI metadata, which will strengthen our ability to give fans the transparency they deserve.
“That information flows best when it travels the entire path from creator to fan, and our members rely on industry partners to make that possible. Our members look forward to continuing to work with the labels, producers, artists and distributors, as well as other industry stakeholders and standards bodies such as DDEX, to build a robust supply chain in which consumers can trust,” he concluded.
This leads to perhaps the largest obstacle on the road to widespread adoption: The outlined system revolves around “voluntary” disclosures as opposed to automatic AI tags like those found on Deezer.
In the long term, there’ll presumably be an opportunity to flip the switch to “mandatory”; the labels are “designed to evolve as technology and requirements change,” per the organizations.
Furthermore, it’s possible that AI tags of any kind will have the desired effect; anti-AI fans will know which songs to avoid and could gain the option of filtering out machine-generated slop down the line.
Of course, the tags fit into the majors’ broader AI identification and compensation strategies as well; Sony Music’s working to tag AI audio, and Warner Music last month bought AI attribution and monetization platform Sureel.
Nevertheless, it isn’t a stretch to assume that artists and especially “uploaders” will be less than forthright about their use of AI.
If Suno CEO Mikey Shulman’s “Ozempic of the music industry” comments are accurate, plenty of commercially prominent releases were actually pumped out (and are being pumped out) with the assistance of gen AI. As such, we should be able to draw worthwhile conclusions if few projects are tagged accordingly once the implementation dust settles.
Bigger picture, the campaign appears to demonstrate across-the-board concerns with DSPs’ AI-identification policies amid accelerating machine-generated uploads. Spotify added verified artist badges in late April, and as tracked by DMN Pro, multiple AI slop artist pages have experienced conspicuous monthly listener slips on the year.
But as noted, Deezer is alone in identifying and tagging AI audio from the get-go. In a statement provided to DMN, the platform expressed a willingness “to support the development of an industry-wide framework.”
“It’s encouraging to see steps being taken towards a unified approach to generative AI in music. As the first music streaming platform to detect, tag and exclude AI-generated music from algorithmic recommendations, Deezer is ready to support the development of an industry-wide framework,” the DSP said.
“This includes key considerations around the use of training data for AI models, ensuring that all rights holders are fairly remunerated. We’re looking forward to continuing our collaboration with the wider music ecosystem to create fair and practical standards for AI in music,” Deezer concluded.
