Songs created largely or entirely by AI have been banned from Australian music charts.
Starting this week, all posts must be “substantially human-created” to be eligible.
The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) said the new code would help “promote the human nature of the art”.
It follows controversy surrounding a cover of Madonna’s Like A Prayer by Australian DJ Josh Fawaz which recently topped the ARIA Dance Singles Chart and peaked at No. 2 on the country’s overall chart.
The song has become a staple of commercial radio station playlists and has been streamed over 48 million times on Spotify alone.
Fawaz later added generative AI credits to the song after backlash.
ARIA said Australian artists were competing for attention “in the most crowded market in history” and that it was “not interested in promoting or celebrating the success of AI-generated music that contains no human art”.
Under the new rules, AI assistance can still be used, but humans must have written the song and performed lead vocals and lead instruments.
AI can also still be used to master songs and, for example, use drum machines and auto-tune.
At the beginning of this year a The song was banned from Swedish music charts. because it was created by AI.
And in July, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said the AI guidelines would be implemented in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia for use in its official charts.
The updated code, based on the IFPI directive, also excludes music that raises “concerns about stream or list manipulation.”
ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd said: “These changes reflect our intention to remain dynamic and promote the human nature of art in what is, to say the least, a rapidly developing space.”
“Artists already use AI tools in their work, charts can and should evolve to make room for that, but music generated wholesale by services based on artist recordings is a different matter.”
He added: “A chart that rewards unlicensed AI production would undermine the very foundation of the recorded music we purport to represent.”
Artists will be required to declare their use of AI when submitting a song for chart consideration.
ARIA said that if it were later discovered that the music was largely generated by AI, it could retrospectively adjust the chart positions, and if the piece topped the charts, it could request that any prizes awarded for reaching number one be returned.
Artists and their representatives may challenge their exclusion.
Among the artists supporting the measure is the Australian electronic group Peking Duk.
Last month, they shared an AI-assisted version of their 2014 hit High on Instagram, with the caption: “When you re-record your own song with AI for Australian radio to play.”
Band member Adam Hyde told Channel Nine’s Today show that AI-generated music was “eliminating the human experience of life”.
In July last year, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised “the strongest possible protection” against AI for Australian creatives.
Albanese promised that writers and musicians would be able to choose if and how their work would be used in AI training, saying it would be a “theft” if creatives lost that control and were not paid for its use.
Source link
