Tidal will label AI-generated music and cut it off from royalties
Tidal said it will require tracks that are wholly or substantially AI-generated to carry a label and will bar them from earning royalties, with the policy taking effect July 15. The service will also block AI music tied to fraud, including impersonation of real artists.
The approach is more assertive than rivals’. Spotify treats licensed music the same regardless of how it was made, and Apple Music — where it says AI tracks are under 1% of weekly plays — leaves labeling to artists and distributors. Tidal, owned by Block, plans to apply labels itself, starting with fully AI-generated songs and expanding to partially AI-made ones as detection improves. The company said it is fielding “an overwhelming amount of AI-generated music from 3rd party distributors.”
The economic logic is straightforward: streaming royalty pools are finite, so every play of a cheaply mass-produced AI track dilutes payouts to human musicians. By denying royalties to flagged AI songs, Tidal is trying to protect that pool and differentiate itself on artist credibility — though the policy’s force will depend entirely on how reliably automated detection can tell AI-made tracks from human ones.