Beatport Bans 100% AI-Generated Tracks

The world’s largest online store for DJs, Beatport, has imposed an absolute ban on uploading predominantly or fully AI-generated music. The automatic filtering takes place during the upload itself: Beatport collaborates with Beatdapp, which checks whether music is AI-generated and prevents its publication. If this is the case, the rights owner is notified of rejection.

1What's Allowed and What's Not

This ban applies only to “fully or predominantly” AI-generated music. Any music created by humans using AI instruments to process, edit, or component parts of the music is allowed, but must be clearly marked as AI-generated. The label will also be displayed in the catalog.

2What DJs Think

This measure is supported by the survey of users of the service: 60% of DJs said they would never play AI-generated music in their DJ sets, and 77% prefer only human-generated music. And only 8% of people are ready to accept AI music in general, and another 13% are ready to accept AI music if it is done so that human musicians get paid. “There is a difference between a tool that helps a person and a system that replaces him,” said Matt Grahnen, CEO of Beatport.

3The Scale of the Problem

And it’s easy to understand why such measures were necessary: according to the streaming service Deezer, about half (around 50%) of all music uploaded to the service daily is AI-generated. This glut of AI-generated music reduces the variety of catalogs and makes it difficult to find human-generated content. Beatport relies on quality and trust, and that’s why it’s not just a recommendation, but an absolute ban.

Musical services are gradually coming to the realization that the only effective measure against an avalanche of AI-generated music is an automatic filter. It is still unclear how accurate the detection algorithms will be able to determine whether the music was “predominantly AI” or “AI assisted”, and here you can start a dispute between the creator and the service.