Greetings all,
I hope all is well with you as you read this and we head into the second quarter of 2026. As I was thinking about the title of this post, it dawned on me that I’ve been blogging on my own domain for 18 years, starting back in a time where today’s popular sites like Medium, Ghost, Substack, and similar subscription fee-based platforms ,weren’t even a thought. I maintain my blog on the WordPress platform and I’m proud to say that it’s never been algorithm-driven but my own digital garden, free from ads, to curate and grow as I see fit.
In any event, over the last three months or so, I’ve been heavily engaged in social media conversations surrounding the strong, ever developing dichotomy of genAI music creation and its related genAI artists alongside of it. By genAI artists, I don’t mean “artists” who generate prompts to AI models provided by the likes of Suno.com, but actual digitally created artists, like Xania Monet, some of which have actually been signed to record labels. In the interest of keeping this length of this post manageable to read, I won’t get into ever particular type of conversation I’ve engaged in, but provide a few highlights. Feel free to ask about anything related to the topic in the comments section of this post.
The graphic below sums up how I feel about genAI music.
To elaborate, it is often said (and rightfully comparable to similar creative technologies of the past, like digital sampling, Photoshop, digital audio music workstation, etc), genAI lowers the barrier for anyone to create music, using generative AI tools, and oneself a songwriter and/or musician. While that may be believed as true, and the definitive of art is subjective, the issue I have with generative AI created music is twofold:
- 1. Whatever is created by the AI tool is just that. The music, the output (instrumental or vocal or both) is a product of the AI tool and the AI tool only. The only thing that is rightfully created and owned by the individual are the lyrics/words used to provide prompts to the AI tool generate the final music product.
- 2. Generative AI tools are trained on music created by humans, a vast majority of the time, without explicit permission granted to use that music for said training, so the original composers can’t be compensated nor can they receive credit/attribution for their original work. I am not a lawyer in anyway, but I don’t call this “fair use”, as upheld in the Anthropic Fair Use Decision for AI Developers and Copyright Holders court case, I call this straight up theft…period. Many have tried to compare the scenario of digital sampling, which has been a cornerstone of hip-hop music production, to genAI music creation and say they are the same – they are not. A generative AI tool development company has no way to “clear music samples” or compensate composers for the music they have stolen to train their AI models, whereas there have many cases where humans have cleared samples for use in hip-hop records and other genres, just as they have chosen not to clear samples or pay attribution and monetarily compensate composer for the music stolen and used. As of this writing, Suno’s Terms of Service summarizes the following:
Suno’s Terms of Service grant paid subscribers ownership of the songs they create, including commercial rights, while free users only have personal, non-commercial rights and do not own their outputs. Suno retains a broad, irrevocable license to use any user-generated content for training and promotion, and they do not guarantee that AI-generated works can be copyrighted.
Ownership and Usage Rights
- Paid Subscription (Pro/Premier): You own the songs generated, allowing for commercial use and monetization.
- Free Plan (Basic): Suno retains ownership of the outputs. You may only use these for non-commercial, personal purposes and must provide attribution.
- Prompt/Lyrics Ownership: You retain ownership of the original lyrics and prompts you input.
Copyright and Legal Limitations
- No Guarantee: Suno does not guarantee that you can secure copyright protection for generated songs.
- AI Output Status: Generally, works created entirely by AI are difficult to copyright, as US copyright law requires human authorship.
- Liability: The responsibility for ensuring your music does not infringe on others’ rights lies with you, not Suno.
Suno’s Rights to User Content
- License: Users grant Suno a worldwide, perpetual, sublicensable, and irrevocable license to use, store, modify, and train their AI on user submissions.
- Public Access: Content may be visible, downloadable, and usable by others on the platform, particularly if set to public.
Generative AI is not going away, it’s in its infancy stages, we all know this. Emotions are running very high on both sides of the fence, the lawsuits with major recording labels and the Sunos of the world are continuing, streaming services like Deezer have reported, as of recent, that AI-generated tracks now represent 44% of all new uploaded musicf all new uploaded music , this amounts to nearly 75,000 tracks on their platform.
For the average listener, the fact of the matter is an age-old one – the average listener (and you can see this on the Instagram and Youtube comment threads on artists like Xania Monet) will not care if a song is AI generated or not. For centuries, the only thing that has ever mattered to an average listener is whether one likes the song or not. With these songs being done so well by these tools, it can be hard to tell the difference, which is one reason many are calling for an digital stamp (similar to a Parental Advisory alert) stating that a song is made by AI. Once again, we are in the infancy stages regarding this dichotomy, so we shall see how things pan out across the board
As a very long time musician/songwriter/composer/studio owner, I do not support anything I can identify as generative AI music. My stance is so simple that I don’t need to get into a debate with opposite opinions, I have no ill-feelings, as such, so arguments don’t need to ensue. As the age old saying goes, “time will tell” about how things will pan out regarding this topic.
Thanks for the read, oceans of rhythm…
Fresh.
