Record companies push for AI music to be labelled on streaming services

Author: Paul Stenhouse ,
Publish Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2026, 11:12am

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Record companies want AI music to be disclosed

And they've got a bunch of other groups onboard too – American Association of Independent Music, the Grammys, SAG-AFTRA, and the Human Artistry Campaign. They want two different classifications:

1) AI-Generated.

2) AI-Assisted, which would mean it was created primarily by humans but used AI for some elements.

They have designed a symbol too, which they would expect to be on the cover art like an "explicit content" warning.

The recording industry says fans are open to listening to AI music, they just want to know it's AI generated. So, if we're being a purist... is a synthesizer generated?

Spotify today will show AI usage in song credits and Apple Music has introduced “transparency tags”, but it seems this label requires someone to say it was AI generated, rather than proving it was human generated.

The EU is holding its position to increase competition in the tech space

The accounting and workplace software giant SAP is going to make it easier for companies to switch to a rival service, all because of the EU's competition rules. The decision means they avoid a massive fine. They're going to make it easier to cancel a contract, as well as export data.

Apple too lost its latest court case challenging the EU Digital Markets Act. The court has ruled that the iOS operating system and the App Store are "gatekeepers". That means they'd be forced to allow alternative app stores, direct installs of apps, alternative payment systems, different web browsers, and access to hardware features like tap-to-pay and more.

iMessage though is not designated as a gatekeeper, which means we won't see the EU force the blue chat bubbles to become more interoperable.

Apple says this will "erode decades of privacy and security protections".

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