The music industry is no longer trying to stop AI-generated music. Instead, it is working on ways to track it and make money from it.
The problem started in 2023 when a fake Drake and The Weeknd song, “Heart on My Sleeve,” went viral. The song shocked the industry because no one knew who made it or where it came from. That moment proved that AI music was here to stay.
Now, the focus is on building systems that can find AI-generated songs early. These tools don’t just look for AI songs after they’re online. They aim to tag the songs as soon as they are made. This helps music companies control how AI music spreads and gets paid for.
Companies like Vermillio and Musical AI are creating tools that can scan songs and find which parts were made by AI. Vermillio’s system, called TraceID, can break a song into pieces — like vocals and melody — and detect AI parts at that level. This lets music owners license AI songs before release instead of going to court afterward.
Platforms like YouTube and Deezer are already using systems to catch AI songs when they are uploaded. Deezer says about 20 percent of new songs uploaded are fully AI-generated. These songs stay on the platform but are not promoted.
The goal is not to ban AI music. It’s to track it, license it, and make sure artists and music companies get paid when AI uses their work.
Some companies are going even further by tracking the training data that AI models use to create songs. This could help calculate how much a new song copies from real artists, allowing better royalty payments upfront.
One idea called Do Not Train Protocol (DNTP) lets artists mark their work as off-limits for AI training. But the system is still new, and not all companies agree on how it should work.
The music industry knows that AI music isn’t going away. So now, it’s building the tools to keep up — not to fight it, but to control it.
