Can I release AI music under an artist persona that isn't a real person?

The persona is fine; the deception isn't

Music has always had fictional artists — cartoon bands, studio projects, alter egos. An AI-era synthetic persona sits in the same tradition, with two new fault lines:

Fault line 1 — imitating someone real. A persona whose voice or branding maps onto an identifiable person crosses into right-of-publicity territory (see the ELVIS Act answer). Our Index tracks identity-collision cases where a synthetic persona shares a name with a working human artist — a collision that damages the human and creates exactly the confusion courts dislike. Search your persona name before committing to it.

Fault line 2 — claimed humanity. The documented blowups of the last two years follow one script: an "artist" gains traction, claims or implies a human backstory, gets exposed as generated, and the story becomes the deception rather than the music. Several such cases sit in our Works records with their disputed claims preserved. The pattern is consistent: audiences accept openly synthetic acts and punish disguised ones.

The stable strategy: be a persona, not a lie. Disclose the AI involvement per the voluntary labels ("AI-Generated" where that's what it is), keep the fictional frame clearly fictional, and the project stands on whether the music works.