Comment by fxwin
4 hours ago
> Tidal will accept AI-generated music.
> Tidal will hold AI-generated music to a higher standard of content integrity. We will not tolerate AI-generated music that exploits an individual’s or group’s music, name or likeness, deceives listeners, or diminishes the quality of our service.
I think this is a very reasonable approach, and probably also the best way to treat AI-powered copyright infringement as a whole. Just like we don't penalize artists for consuming content unless they produce actually infringing content, we should set the same focus for AI systems.
> Starting today, AI-generated music will not be monetizable. We are only in the beginning of the era of AI-generated music.
Don't really agree that this follows from the stated principle here ("... ensuring royalties go to original works produced, written and performed by people"), but will definitely help with spam etc.
The flood of AI music on their platform is becuase people can make money off it. If you turn off that faucet you stop the flooding.
And the flood really is overwhelming. This weekend my mom was complaining about having trouble finding anything actually good to read on Kindle Unlimited. I mentioned that the relative lack of slop is one of the major reasons I chose Kobo over Kindle. Even before this latest AI boom I was already starting to view less content as a feature, not a bug, because it seems that on subscription services “more” is increasingly just a polite way of saying “more crap.”
Similar feelings about Nebula vs YouTube, although Nebula straight up doesn’t have entire genres, or videos in languages other than English, so it doesn’t really work as a general recommendation.
I really wanted to like Kobo but the no refunds policy really burned me. I bought a book listed as being in English, with an English title and English on the cover page, but the contents were entirely in French and they wouldn't refund it because of the general no refund policy. I just felt ripped off because what I bought, as advertised, just wasn't what I received.
I don't follow this rule strictly, but for most of my adult life I've limited most of my book reading to books > 10 years old. If it still seems remotely relevant and worth reading ten years later, it is far less likely to be a waste of my time. Now sure I'm a bit less prepared for water cooler conversations, but overall the policy has served me well.
> having trouble finding anything actually good to read on Kindle
because of AI slop is new benefit of sticking to older texts that I hadn't anticipated.
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I've encountered AI copies of songs from popular artists, hopefully this will stop or at least slow that down. I suspect the only reason those songs are uploaded is because people will accidentally listen to it and then the up loader gets the streaming revenue.
But that's not a new issue per se, low effort "covers" / "remixes" of songs has been an issue for a long time. Bonus point if said low-effort remix includes the original artist in the artist fields, so it shows up in the recommendations of fans of the original artist for a lot of accidental listens.
But AI does seem to make it easier.
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It’s really bad on smaller artists that had moderate vitality on TikTok. Or at least it’s easier to spot since they have smaller catalogs. Encountered some on Apple Music the other day that outright had the artist listed and according to Apple it was from the artist.
IMO they need to focus on the scam side more than the AI side.
I think the flood is also due to people in general finding AI generated music passable.
I may be in the minority but I like AI generated music. Do you ever really like a song in the current moment and want one almost exactly like that? Mostly for background music. I like to listen to synthwave while working and since I may listen for 10-20h a week, I hear the same songs over and over. Maybe I should be more selective or curate my playlist, but it's just work. I would love a stream of AI generated music in a particular style I can work to.
You see that a lot in AI (and honestly, other discussions) where people with differing requirements are talking past each other.
Some people are listening to music as an experience, internalizing lyrics, empathizing with the feeling and vibes of the artist. Others are just wanting something pop-y as background noise while they do work. They come together and since they're arguing for different needs, the whole thing turns into a mess.
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So why not just disallow it entirely, if that’s the goal?
Sure, but how will Tidal consistently determine AI generated music? This is new frontier of spam.
So begins the Clone Wars...
> how will Tidal consistently determine AI generated music?
Is this their responsibility? Just restrict payment to the registered copyright holder or their delegate, require registration of copyright for music to be payment-eligible, and escalate the problem to a federal crime with (presumedly) federal enforcement, no? Sure, some people will commit federal crimes to get a payout, but it's gotta reduce the problem massively.
The real reason is not that people can make money off it, it's that actual people are listening to it.
Let them do, if they like to listen, whom are you to say their tastes are bad ?
> 97% of people can’t tell the difference between fully AI-generated and human made music
https://newsroom-deezer.com/2025/11/deezer-ipsos-survey-ai-m...
People do listen to it and enjoy it but to some degree it becomes a marketing problem. I don't know how to weight the moral issue of someone missing out on a song they would love and instead getting a one they merely like because the ai stuff is flooding the market, but it would be nice to tip the scales a bit in the other way.
I think this is also a reason why X has gotten worse. They pay people for engagement.
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Tidal should simply ban AI generated music from upload if they are not willing to pay uploaders should the music become popular. Under these rules an AI generated country and western song that makes it to number 1 on the billboard chart makes Tidal money and the uploader nothing.
> We will therefore not knowingly attribute royalties to music we identify as wholly AI-generated.
Seems like Tidal is leaning on a probable lack of copyright for fully generated works here, otherwise wouldn't this run head-first into the music modernization act?
i feel like it's going to be hard to defend whether, for example, handwriting and rewriting the lyrics and style prompts is enough to make it classified as non AI generated in the end.
it's not like they'd make the subscription free if you listen to loyalties-free music only.
Indeed. When they say that AI music can’t be monetized, they of course mean “… except by us”.
I'm curious about they will apply the part saying "AI-generated music will not be monetizable." What does AI-generated music mean, exactly? What if you make an AI generated bassline but produce the rest of a track by hand? How about an AI vocal? Or a mix of AI stems and your own recordings?
Tidal's terms and conditions (https://tidal.com/terms) say that:
> “AI-Generated Content” means any audio content, inclusive of musical works and sound recordings, that is wholly or substantially generated by generative artificial intelligence, with limited or no direct human creative input beyond an initial text prompt or similar instruction. ... You acknowledge that AI detection technology may produce false positives or false negatives.
And:
> If you use TIDAL Upload, your Tracks may be scanned for the purpose of identifying whether the content is AI-Generated Content, and to label such content accordingly on the Tidal platform. You acknowledge that such scanning and labeling is performed on a best-efforts basis and that Tidal shall not be liable for any inaccuracies in AI detection or labeling. AI-Generated Content uploaded to Tidal is not eligible for monetization. If you believe your Tracks were erroneously tagged as AI-Generated, you can reach out to support@tidal.com.
As a musician I can definitely tell when a song has been arranged by AI but performed by humans. There are a couple of chart-toppers done this way. I won't give up the ghost, though ;)
It would be far more interesting if you did. Not sure why you feel need to keep it secret.
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are there tells beyond the lyrics? I swear there are a number of songs using out of “human distribution” words, trigrams, etc.
Is it overall song structure?
Really don't mean any offence to your comment because you probably mean well but I have little tolerance for the "reasonable"/fence-sitting kind of comments on this kind of issues.
If they really cared to much about empowering people creating things for other people, like others have pointed out, they should just ban it.
Sure, in reality it's not so easy to just ban AI content because there is a spectrum of it and it's really not a clear-cut problem.
But your stance can be clear-cut, and in this messy world where there is no perfect solution one way or the other, your stance matters even more. You could either be seen as a fence sitter who allowed slop to happen, or someone who stands with human creativity battling against shitty people and their slop.
Please stop this kind of fence-sitting reasoning if you care about people.
Not sure about the stated principal, but I do think it follows the policy nicely. Yes, you can upload your AI generated music, but it will be tagged as such, and you cannot profit from it.
The issue i have with it will depend heavily on implementation, i can see cases where songs that i would consider "produced and written" by people don't qualify for royalties under Tidal's guidelines. (I intentionally left out the "performed" part, since digital music production is way past the point where this was an easy and/or meaningful distinction)
Isn’t it true that AI generated music holds no legal copyright?
Depend on jurisdiction and probably how AI much is generated. If you write the lyrics but generate the song you still have copyright to the lyrics and so on
In Canada (which I assume you were referring to, as you didn't specify a jurisdiction) this claim is currently in litigation, so there is no definitive answer as to whether AI generated music is copyrightable or not. The currently accepted definition of "originality" (as required by the Copyright Act) is that it must involve the claimed author's "skill and judgment". Whatever that may mean in the context of AI is currently left for the reader to decide.
Why is that? And who draws the line? If I use a synthesizer to generate music, does that count as AI generated?
I was under the impression that the US copyright office/various judges already determined that anything created 100% by AI is not copyrightable.
A synthesizer is not AI.
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AI is not a tool, it is an oracle.
Furthermore, it is an oracle built on copyright infringement.
Do you understand the difference between "tool" and "oracle"?
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The difference between AI and artists is that artists are humans, which should grant them more rights and fewer penalties than some fucking software.
Artists don't get penalized, but for that reason, we should penalize the hell out of it.
If a bunch of hyper intelligent space aliens came in and started squeezing the rest of us out of creative economic activity, they shouldn't be on an equal playing field either. Laws and rules exist to serve humans, not machines.
> Laws and rules exist to serve humans, not machines.
Machines don't go out on their own to create and upload music, they do so under human instruction, so their output should be policed the same way we police other machine generated output directed by humans.
I guess you haven’t seen some of the agentic stuff?
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