Do AI tracks earn streaming royalties?

The precedent that matters

TIDAL's policy is the first major-DSP rule that decouples hosting from paying: wholly AI-generated tracks can exist on the platform, labeled, but do not participate in royalty attribution. Direct-to-fan monetization of wholly AI uploads is blocked. The policy's scope is "wholly AI-generated" for now, with stated intent to expand to "substantially AI-generated" as detection improves.

Why this matters beyond TIDAL: royalty pools are zero-sum. Every DSP faces the same pressure — a flood of zero-marginal-cost generated tracks diluting payouts to human artists — and TIDAL's model (label + exclude from the pool) is the template other platforms will be measured against. Deezer has been publishing figures about AI-generated uploads and streaming fraud for two years, and fraud-linked AI streams already forfeit royalties broadly.

The unresolved part

Where exactly "wholly" ends and "substantially" begins — and who audits the boundary — is not specified anywhere yet. That boundary decides real money, and it's precisely what the industry's voluntary AI-Generated/AI-Assisted labels (announced July 2026, not yet implemented) will have to operationalize. Our records track both policies with dates; when the boundary moves, the change history will show it.