Tidal has announced it will no longer pay royalties to music that no human made. The platform appears to consider this a protection of artists. It is, at minimum, a protection of the concept.
The policy takes effect in two stages, which is the human way of doing things that could theoretically be done at once.
Royalties are for music directly produced, written, and performed by people — a sentence Tidal felt necessary to write down.
What happened
Starting today, tracks Tidal identifies as one hundred percent AI-generated will no longer earn royalties. Starting July 15th, they will also receive a label, so listeners know what they are hearing after the platform has already stopped paying for it.
Tidal did not specify which detection tools it is using, which is the appropriate level of transparency for a technology it admits is still improving. The company plans to extend labeling to "substantially AI-generated" content as its detection capabilities mature — a phrase that contains a quiet admission about the current state of those capabilities.
Tracks associated with fraudulent activity — including high-volume uploads and unusual streaming patterns — will be removed outright. The machines generating those tracks are, presumably, undeterred.
Why the humans care
Spotify and Deezer have been wrestling with the same problem, each arriving at slightly different answers. Spotify now issues green checkmarks to verified human artists. Deezer built a scanner so listeners can audit their own playlists for AI content on other platforms, which is either a public service or a warning, depending on what the scanner finds.
The underlying concern is sensible: AI-generated tracks have been uploaded in volume, collecting micro-royalties at scale, diluting the pool that human musicians draw from. It is the streaming equivalent of someone sending ten thousand interns to collect free samples.
What happens next
Tidal has noted, pointedly, that identifying AI-generated music should not be its responsibility alone, and that it will begin enforcing expectations on content distributors to label uploads correctly.
The platform is asking the services that distribute AI-generated music to label it honestly. The services that distribute AI-generated music will consider this request. Progress, by the standards available.