AI Music News
Your independent source for AI music news and what each story means for music creators.
- 01 Oct
01 OctIMPF and IMPEL publish 7 AI licensing principles, and the song must be valued at least equally with the recording
- IMPF and IMPEL published a joint framework of 7 principles for generative AI licensing on September 30, 2026.
- The one principle they call non-negotiable is that the song must be valued at least equally with the recording, absent other salient factors.
- In 2021, recording rights took 53% of UK streaming revenue and publishing rights took 15%, according to the UK Competition and Markets Authority.
- 01 Oct
01 OctKenjiro Tsuda's AI voice case: Tokyo court rules a voice is a publicity right, but rejects his TikTok takedown
- The Tokyo District Court ruled on September 30, 2026 that a person's voice is protected by the publicity right, the first ruling of its kind in Japan.
- The court dismissed voice actor Kenjiro Tsuda's demand that TikTok remove 188 AI-narrated videos, because the videos had already left TikTok's servers.
- Under the court's test, using a performer's voice without permission infringes when the voice draws customers and the use is solely aimed at exploiting that pull.
- 01 Oct
01 OctProsecutors want Michael Smith in prison for at least 46 months over his $8M AI streaming fraud
- Prosecutors asked Judge John G. Koeltl to sentence Michael Smith to at least 46 months in prison, in a letter dated September 28, 2026 and filed September 29.
- 46 months is the bottom of the 46 to 57 month guidelines range. Smith's lawyers want probation, and the probation office recommends 24 months.
- The letter says Smith's catalog drew 80.9 million YouTube Music family-plan streams in April 2023, against 9.3 million for Taylor Swift's entire catalog.
- 01 Oct
01 OctThomson Reuters v. ROSS: the first US appeals ruling on AI training rejects fair use, with the RIAA and NMPA on the winning side
- The US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled on September 29, 2026 that ROSS Intelligence's AI training on Westlaw headnotes was not fair use.
- It is the first ruling by a federal appeals court on whether training AI on copyrighted works is fair use.
- The 32-page precedential opinion by Judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves found 3 of the 4 fair use factors weighed against ROSS.
- 29 Sept
29 SeptORCA wants streaming services to charge a per-track upload fee to curb AI spam and fraud
- ORCA proposed on September 15, 2026 that streaming services charge a fee for every new track uploaded.
- Each streaming service would set and collect its own fee, and the money would go into the royalty pool.
- Creators who pass trust and safety checks for human-made music could pay a lower fee or none.
- 29 Sept
29 SeptTaylor Swift's 'Patient Zero' gets compared to a viral AI song about steel coils on trains
- Taylor Swift released "Patient Zero" on September 25, 2026, as the lead single from The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore.
- Spotify says it became its most-streamed song by a female artist in a single day in 2026.
- Listeners on Threads compared it to a viral AI-generated TikTok song about how trains carry steel coils.
- 29 Sept
29 SeptUniversal Music hires Òscar Celma, who helped build Spotify's AI DJ, as its first SVP of applied AI
- Universal Music Group appointed Òscar Celma as Senior Vice President, Applied AI and Machine Learning, effective September 28, 2026.
- Billboard reports the role is the first of its kind at UMG.
- At Spotify, Celma helped lead the development of AI DJ, Jam and Daylist.
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- 28 Sept
28 SeptMusic Technology UK adds ClicknClear's Chantal Epp and SoundPatrol's Will Hughes to its board
- Music Technology UK appointed Chantal Epp, founder of ClicknClear, and Will Hughes, Chief Revenue Officer at SoundPatrol, to its Board on September 28, 2026.
- The 2 appointments take the MTUK Board from 5 directors to 7, after a nomination process that opened in summer 2026.
- ClicknClear holds blanket licensing deals with Universal, Sony and Warner, and won a 2025 WIPO Global Award.
- 26 Sept
26 SeptAI-generated love songs from Caleb Flynn's iPhone played as evidence at his Ohio murder trial
- Prosecutors played 2 AI-generated love songs recovered from Caleb Flynn's iPhone at his murder trial in Miami County, Ohio, on September 25, 2026.
- In texts read in court, Flynn said he recorded the song on piano and used ElevenLabs to pick an AI voice to sing it.
- A forensic investigator testified that Flynn deleted an app called "AI music song generator" days before his wife Ashley Flynn was killed.
- 26 Sept
26 SeptNashville songwriter Chris Gray built AI singer Vance Drake to sing his songs, and labels every release as AI
- Nashville songwriter Chris Gray created an AI singer called Vance Drake to perform songs he has written over decades.
- Gray writes every song himself, and says Vance Drake sings but does not write.
- He plans to release one Vance Drake song a month and to label the artist clearly as AI-generated on every release.
- 26 Sept
26 SeptFred again.. says the opposite of AI music isn't human music, it's making music
- Fred again.. posted 4 Instagram Stories about AI music on September 25, 2026.
- He said the opposite of AI music is making music, and that the process is the magic.
- He said he has felt no pull whatsoever to try AI, because he places much of his identity in the process of making music.
- 26 Sept
26 SeptTHE MOTEL's 'NO' tops Japan's iTunes Alternative chart, and the band still hasn't said if it used AI
- THE MOTEL's single 'NO' reached No. 1 on Japan's iTunes Alternative chart and No. 13 on the all-genre chart after a studio clip passed almost 15 million views on X.
- Music commentator Mino put the chance that the band used AI at 99.99% and named Suno, while a vocal coach suggested a hybrid built from the band's own voices.
- The only documented AI link so far is a Gemini sparkle on the artwork for the March single 'Broken Amp', which says nothing about how the music was made.