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Comments (279)

• totallygeeky
  I do think this is a (late to the party but) good policy overall from them. Monetization is biggest incentive, and then requiring labelling will be good for consumers making informed decisions on what they're listening to.I have my various beefs with them personally, but I am glad to see them approaching this in a fairly responsible way.
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  fxwin
  > 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.
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  keiferski
  I really hope someone makes a music platform in the future that is verified as human-made. Music is about connecting to human emotions, not poor facsimiles of it.Tie it to in-person concerts and it might actually work as a business, as well as logistically – maybe the company can be a record producer in disguise and physically meet every musician they host.
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  postalcoder
  AI music has taken over small businesses like coffee shops and restaurants. AI music drives me nuts because, to me, it still is very much deep in an uncanny valley. That said, I can't blame the businesses because they are all (dis)incentive driven.The music industry has stepped up its efforts globally to crack down on small businesses that play copyrighted music. They actually hire people to go into these places and spot violations.People blame social media for the death of the monoculture but I think music rights holders have done a fair share of the damage to themselves.
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  dkhenry
  I just want Tidal and Spotify to give me the option to fully opt-out of AI generated music. I don't want it mixed in with my music. If others want it great, but I want the option to not engage with the content.
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  gwbas1c
  I'm a Tidal subscriber, something like this is needed.My Tidal "feed" is full of new releases that are clearly AI-generated. They use the same artist name as artists that I really like, but the music is clearly not from the artist as advertised.I have no problem with AI-generated music, I just don't want someone trying to spoof the artists I am interested in.
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  elicash
  > Tidal defines AI-generated music as music that is wholly or substantially generated by generative artificial intelligence.I think this needs more clarity. I can think of a lot of different ways AI is used in music today as a part of the song generation process and not sure whether or not this definition would apply to it. They specifically mention developments in "text-prompted generation" but if anything that confuses the issue more, for example what about training on specific music.This isn't a comment on how expansive or narrow the definition should be, just that they need to spell it out more to allow for consistent application (to say nothing of enforcement). If someone uses ChatGPT for lyrics, but writes the instrumentals themselves, does this policy apply? I genuinely have no idea.
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  jorisw
  Allow AI, but require labeling as such, and demonetize.Would love for YouTube to follow suit on this
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  jordand
  I've been a Tidal subscriber for several years, and while I've not seen much of the AI music problem (yet), there's been a big issue with people getting their music intentionally or unintentionally labelled under other artists names. The platform has had some odd technical hiccups too over the past year, so I've started wondering how many people are left actually maintaining it all (there were layoffs pretty recently).
• disposition2
  I commend Tidal for at least trying.I wish Youtube Music would offer some relief from the flood of AI music on their platform. My frustrations with YTM are exacerbated by the fact that it has the absolute minimum in functionality when it comes to browsing or searching.I don't understand the user hostile nature of so many services these days when it comes to content discovery. We all know the data is there, but making it available for the user to actually browse or god forbid a modicum of search filters is like some forbidden fruit.
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  habosa
  Makes sense for them as a business, but still a bummer to have AI music mixed in with human music at all. To me there is literally no point to AI music. Music is communication. The artist is communicating with the listener through a pretty unique and magical asynchronous medium. AI (as we know it today) can't meet that bar and so it does not meet my definition of music.
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  preetham_rangu
  The detection problem is genuinely hard. Even desktop AI agents I've been working with recently can control Spotify, fill forms, navigate apps — all indistinguishable from human interaction at the OS level. If that's hard to detect at the application layer, detecting AI-generated music at the audio layer seems like a cat and mouse game that Tidal will struggle to win without self-reporting from uploaders.
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  hmokiguess
  I wonder if we are gonna see an emerging market where musicians are hired to provide support for AI music farms, I feel like gig musicians can easily cover/learn to play anything without much troubleThis would then become something similar to how legal tech where a license is required to practice law relies on a few lawyers sitting as a gate after the AI
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  riddley
  Interestingly, this is a 404 if you're logged into Tidal.
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  TrackerFF
  I'm a musician by hobby, but used to make a living of it in my younger days. AI music has come to stay, can't do anything about it - the cat is out of the bag.I know professional musicians that will use AI models like Suno as an aid to their tracks - mostly where they'd previously use samples or program things themselves. In these cases, where the track may be x% AI and (1-x)% Human performance, where x is very small, I think monetization or even copyright shouldn't be too difficult.But I also know people that use tools like Suno for everything, where every single aspect of the song: Lyrics, music, production is all done by AI tools. They basically just prompt some style and vibe they want, and will upload the result. In these cases, I don't think monetization or copyright should be possible.Then again, it is difficult to know how much AI someone used to generate their tracks, so I'm not sure how this could be enforced. I also know people that are earning very good money off their (entirely) Suno-generated tracks.
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  maxdo
  I do have a music recommendation from a live person. After check was not a real person, it was quite a popular ai artist doing funk music.Here we are. music is great, people do not suspect it's ai, artist behind AI is making money. Real work, real people are happy. It's just the voice and instruments are not real. How is it different from club music made in fruity loops? This music is just more complicated, hence no fruity loop. With AI you don't need to assemble the entire band do to funk music. Isn't that democratize access to music production?
• yellowapple
  Just got the email announcement this morning:> AI music generation tools are changing how music is created and distributed. As this technology evolves, Tidal is introducing platform standards to protect artists, their craft, and inform listeners.> Here are the highlights of our new AI Policy:> - Tidal will identify and tag AI-generated music in our app. Listeners will see an "AI" badge next to music we detect as wholly AI-generated.> - Tidal will not tolerate AI-generated music that impersonates an artist or group, or that facilitates fraudulent activity. We're implementing automatic tools to remove these releases immediately and on an ongoing basis.> - Tidal will not allow music that is 100% AI-generated to be monetized. No royalties will go to such releases, nor will AI-generated uploads be eligible for direct-to-fan sales.> - We will expand these policies to music that is substantially AI-generated when AI detection technology is sufficiently reliable to do so.> You'll start seeing these changes from July 15.> Check out the full policy here. To learn more, please visit our FAQ.> For the music,> The Tidal TeamAll in all seems reasonable. There's definitely been a wave of cheap slop flooding Tidal's library lately and removing the incentives for it seems like the exact correct approach to stemming that tide.The only thing worrying to me is the use of “AI detection technology”; that stuff is notorious for both false positives and false negatives, and it seems to only be getting worse as AI is getting better at hiding its “tells”. As long as there's an appeals process with a human in the loop it should work out fine.I'm also curious about how they'll define “substantially AI-generated”, i.e. where they'll draw that line. Human vocals over an AI backing track? AI vocals over a human backing track? All human performers, but using instruments with AI-generated sounds?
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  iainctduncan
  Some of this is sensible. The copyright authority (can't recall right this moment what it is called in the US) has said only works by human beings are copyrightable. A good argument is that therefore there is no reason to pay royalties on AI generated work as it is the equivalent to public domain.Take away the attraction to the grifters and you reduce the issue.Of course this does not eliminate the problem of the streaming platforms tolertating AI generated work so that they do not need to pay as much out for your subscription fee.Personally, if there were a decent Spotify alternative that had a zero tolerance to gen AI policy, I'd switch without a second thought.
• annagio_
  lets see who is going to win, AI or Artists? I'm going to stick with real artists, even if some of them use ghost producers.
• summarybot
  Headline should read "Tidal will not pay royalties to AI music"
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  arjie
  Cool stuff. I love AI music. Listen to it all day while writing code or whatever. Most of the time it’s the outrun or vaporwave like 1 hr playlists on YouTube and then I have a few Suno songs I’m fond of when I feel a specific mood strike me.It’s pretty cool technology. You just ask for a certain feeling to be evoked and you can have it done. Magical.
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  cush
  This is so surprising coming from Tidal - their entire business was built on high-fidelity, crediting artists, and paying them more
• waffletower
  Given that Tidal will likely, and ironically, utilize AI to determine what music is considered AI, the decision to block monetization of AI categorized music is likely also unfair to artists who use spectral DSP and/or sample from AI generated sources though largely compose music in a manner similar to other common computer mediated music studio workflows. Such music may very well land in the realm of false positives. This is another step by streaming platforms which funnels and restricts musical creativity.
• Grombobulous
  The policy seems a lot more reasonable than the straight up dystopian scam that Spotify runs, but I am surprised that there isn’t any streaming service that’s marketing heavy on “no AI allowed” considering the percentage of people who are against AI. Seems like small players like Tidal could make some headway with marketing like that.
• 6thbit
  Isn’t it subjective what “substantially” may mean to them.If you use ai tools not for full generation of a song but perhaps a bass track would they allow monetizing?
• PierceJoy
  I have serious doubts that their detection will be good enough, especially in cases where it's not 100% AI generated. The EDM and hip hop genres relies heavily on samples, and I guarantee all the sample services all being pumped full of AI generated creations. Many artists using the sample won't even know they using things that are AI generated.
• poppafuze
  Tidal has declared that AI music will now be more profitable to them .
• romanovcode
  > Tidal will accept AI-generated music.Okey, that's all I needed to know. They could just put this one sentence in the doc and be done with it.
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  Invictus0
  How are they going to detect the AI music?
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  techpression
  Love that they don't pay any royalties for AI music right now, unlike Spotify.
• mc32
  I like what I see from their policy. They accept that it’s part of the industry landscape and also say it’s not monetizeable. They will likely revisit and revise their stance as things change.I strongly agree on labeling the generated content.
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  throw_m239339
  That's fair, allow AI slop but tag obvious AI slop as such. Hopefully they add an option to hide detected AI slop, something I wish Youtube had for instance.
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  tiahura
  Interesting discussion with Jeff Bridges on Suno: https://x.com/adityarao310/status/2071488913630204209/video/...
• jeremyberemy
  Am I the only one getting a "Page not found"?Edit: Nevermind, see riddley's comment. That's what I get for being logged in, I guess?
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  pier25
  Good now add a setting to hide all AI content.
• akshaydeshraj
  A very reasonable policy, prevents AI Slop from flooding the platform due to misaligned creator / consumer incentives
• jrm4
  An interesting problem in the background of this is the cope.Which is to say, there are a lot of people who think "they can tell AI" in music, wherein you can cue the famous picture of the airplane with the bulletholes.I'm not sure what you can do about it, and part of me hates it too -- but youtube has absolutely given me 100% AI generated music that's full of soul and better than, say, Bruno Mar,s IMHO.(For those interested, my two examples would be the gospel "Thong Song" and the fake rock-n-roll dis track against 50 cent "by TI's Son," 2 quarters...)
• ReptileMan
  The main thing that I learned from this is that Tidal is still alive.Anyway the battle with slop is curation. Eurodance by AI is as shitty as eurodance by humans.
• dude250711
  A tide of slop.
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  sph
  > Tidal will accept AI-generated musicTl;dr. Another one bites the dust.
• cnobody
  Funny, Tidal want pay royalties on it.
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  Kuyawa
  Why demonetize? What if people wants to pay for AI music? What about the long tail? There is a market for everything, just label it and let it be.
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  butlike
  > Starting today, AI-generated music will not be monetizable.AKA: We will take the value, if any, AI-generated music gives, but we will not be paying royalties. This is a contradictory statement. How does the AI-generated music give value if the generated content is inherently worthless?