The music distribution platform Bandcamp introduced in a Reddit publish on Tuesday that it’s banning AI-generated music and audio.
“We wish musicians to maintain making music, and for followers to trust that the music they discover on Bandcamp was created by people,” the corporate stated.
Bandcamp’s new pointers state that music and audio generated “wholly or in substantial half by AI” shouldn’t be permitted, and that it’ll not enable using AI instruments to impersonate different artists or kinds.
So, if Drake had launched “Taylor Made Freestyle” on Bandcamp, he would’ve had an issue (and possibly it could’ve been for his own good).
As AI music turbines like Suno turn into extra subtle, it’s turn into more durable to keep away from artificial music — songs created with AI instruments have topped charts on Spotify and Billboard. AI music now sounds actual sufficient that it may be tough to decipher the way it was made.
In a single high-profile instance, Telisha Jones, a 31-year-old in Mississippi, used Suno to show her (supposedly natural) poetry into the viral R&B tune “How Was I Supposed To Know.” Her AI “persona,” Xania Monet, acquired a number of bids for file offers earlier than signing with Hallwood Media in a deal reportedly value $3 million.
The legality of AI-generated music is up within the air. Suno is presently going through lawsuits from three main labels — Sony Music Leisure, Common Music Group, and Warner Music Group — alleging that the corporate skilled its AI on copyrighted materials from the labels.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
This hasn’t deterred Silicon Valley, although. Suno raised a $250 million Series C spherical in November, which valued the corporate at $2.4 billion. Whereas the elevate was led by Menlo Ventures, Suno noticed participation from Hallwood Media, the corporate backing Xania Monet.
The authorized outlook doesn’t look good for artists. In a current lawsuit, a judge ruled that Anthropic may use copyrighted books that it downloaded illegally to coach its AI. What was unlawful, the decide stated, was that Anthropic pirated the books that it fed into its AI fashions. The corporate obtained a $1.5 billion slap on the wrist, which isn’t very important for an organization that’s valued at $183 billion.
Not like Spotify or Apple Music, Bandcamp doesn’t pay artists per stream. As an alternative, Bandcamp permits artists to promote their music digitally alongside bodily merchandise like merch and CDs.
Bandcamp solely makes cash from its reduce of artists’ gross sales — however even when it presents itself as an artist-first distributor, a tech firm continues to be a tech firm, and the underside line issues. Taking a look at Bandcamp’s transfer optimistically, maybe the corporate is confirming what artists hope to be true: nobody is definitely spending cash to purchase AI-generated music, at the least not on Bandcamp.
