{ "slug": "ekonomika-shi-muzyky-2026", "url": "https://neurodrift.org/en/blog/ekonomika-shi-muzyky-2026/", "title": "Who Makes Money from AI Music: Suno Claims a $300m Annual Revenue Run-Rate, While AI Tracks Get 1–3% of Deezer Streams", "description": "A factual breakdown of the economics of generated music as of November 2026: how much the generators Suno, ElevenLabs and Udio earn and raise, what labels got from lawsuits and licenses, how streaming services pay for AI tracks, whether mass uploading pays off, how much money fraud brings in, where AI is displacing background music, and what the law says in the US, the EU and Ukraine. 14 charts, 2 tables, a payback calculator, a money map.", "author": "Дністер", "language": "en-US", "published": "2026-11-10T03:01:54.000Z", "updated": null, "tags": [ "artificial intelligence", "AI music", "Suno", "music streaming", "royalties", "copyright", "streaming fraud" ], "translationOf": "https://neurodrift.org/blog/ekonomika-shi-muzyky-2026/", "sourceUrl": "https://neurodrift.org/blog/ekonomika-shi-muzyky-2026/", "body": "\n\n\nOn October 6, 2026, a federal court in New York sentenced Michael Smith of North Carolina to 18 months in prison and ordered him to forfeit $8,091,843.64. According to the US Department of Justice, between 2017 and 2024 he uploaded hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to streaming services and played them with bots, about 661 thousand streams a day. Eight months before the sentence, Suno CEO Mikey Shulman wrote that the service had 2 million paying subscribers and a $300m annual revenue run-rate. These two events show where the money in AI music is really moving today: in payment for the tool and in theft from the shared payout pool, not in royalties for streams of generated songs.\n\nThe real picture is more complicated than either headline. On Deezer, fully generated tracks made up more than half of new uploads on peak days in June 2026, but only 1–3% of streams. Over the past year Warner and Universal have partly turned their lawsuits against generators into licenses (Universal and Sony are still suing Suno, and Sony is also suing Udio), but have disclosed no amounts. Forecasts of losses for musicians reach a quarter of revenue by 2028, while the measured market indicators have moved little so far.\n\nThe most reliably documented money in AI music is payment for the tool and venture capital (Suno: a $300m annual revenue run-rate by its own statement and more than $775m of investment), not royalties to the authors of AI tracks: on Deezer their tracks collect 1–3% of streams, up to 85% of those streams were found there to be fraudulent, and the amounts of the labels’ licensing deals with generators have still not been disclosed.\n\n
\n
$300m
Suno’s annualized revenue run-rate (ARR) and 2m paid subscribers, as claimed by its CEO in February 2026; the company has published no audited accounts, profit or margin
\n
1–3%
of Deezer streams go to fully AI-generated music, although on peak days in June 2026 it made up more than half of new uploads
\n
0 of 8
known deals between labels or rights holders and AI generators (UMG, WMG, Sony, Merlin, Kobalt, STIM) disclosed a sum; UMG and WMG expect AI income from fiscal 2027
\n
24% / −2%
of creators’ revenue at risk by 2028 in CISAC’s forecast, versus the measured 2025 change in labels’ sync revenue for recordings (IFPI)
\n
\n\n*This is a review of published data as of November 2, 2026, not investment or legal advice. Company statements are marked as statements; annualized revenue run-rate (ARR) is not audited revenue, and a company’s valuation is not income.*\n\n## 01 · What we count and where the money comes from\n\n“AI music” covers four different things: assistance to a human (a generated part, melody or lyrics), synthetic performance of human-written lyrics, full generation of a composition and audio, and abuse: duplicates, deceptive metadata, stream manipulation. Platforms count them differently: Deezer detects only full generation, YouTube separately labels “partially generated” content, and US collective organizations pay for hybrid works but not for fully machine-made ones.\n\nMoney in this economy flows through five channels:\n\n1. **Subscriptions to generators.** The user pays $6–39 a month for the right to download a track and use it commercially.\n2. **Licenses and settlements.** Generators pay labels, publishers and collective management organizations (CMOs) for training models on their catalogs.\n3. **Streaming royalties.** Streams of AI tracks receive a share of the shared payout pool, if the platform pays for them at all.\n4. **Background music for business.** Advertising, video, games and shops buy cheap licensed music, human-made or generated.\n5. **Fraud.** Artificial streams take money from that same pool.\n\nCosts are rising separately: for detecting AI and stream manipulation, moderation, and courts. Below, for each channel: what has been measured, what has been claimed, and what is unknown.\n\n
\n\n\n2023\n\n2024\n\n2025\n\n2026\n\n2027\nGenerators\n\n\nSuno: $125m round\n\nValued at $2.45bn\n\nSuno: $300m ARR\n\n\nValued at $5.4bn\n\n\nDownload caps\nDeals, suits\n\n\nRIAA v. Suno, Udio\n\nUMG–Udio, WMG–Suno\n\nGEMA beats OpenAI\n\n\nSony: second suit\n\n\nGEMA beats Suno\nPlatforms\n\n\nDeezer: new payouts\n\nSpotify: 1,000 floor\n\nDeezer AI detector\n\nDeezer demonetizes AI\n\nTIDAL: no AI royalty\nLaw\n\n\nUS: AI unprotected\n\nASCAP/BMI/SOCAN\n\nThaler: cert denied\n\n\nAI Act Art. 50\n\n\nSmith: 18 months\n\n
Three years of AI-music economics: investor money, lawsuits that partly turned into licenses, and new payout rulesSources: Suno, TechFundingNews, RIAA, GEMA, Deezer, Spotify, TIDAL, US Copyright Office, ASCAP/BMI/SOCAN, US Department of Justice; dates are announcement or entry-into-force dates.
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\n\n## 02 · The pie: $31.7bn, of which AI accounts for a tiny share\n\nThe global recorded music market grew 6.4% in 2025 to $31.7bn, the eleventh consecutive year of growth, according to IFPI. More than $22bn (69.6%) came from streaming, and the number of paid subscriptions reached 837 million. Spotify paid rightsholders more than $11bn for 2025, “almost 70%” of what it received, and YouTube paid the music industry more than $8bn from July 2024 to June 2025.\n\n
\n\n\n0\n\n10\n\n20\n\n30\n\n\n13.0\n2014\n\n\n17.3\n2017\n\n\n19.1\n2018\n\n\n21.6\n2020\n\n\n25.9\n2021\n\n\n26.2\n2022\n\n\n28.6\n2023\n\n\n29.6\n2024\n\n\n31.7\n2025\n$bn\n\n
The global recorded music market has grown for 11 years in a row: $31.7bn in 2025IFPI, Global Music Report 2026 and earlier editions; wholesale label revenue; figures as published in each year (IFPI revises earlier years); 2015, 2016 and 2019 omitted.
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\n\nWhat share of this pie AI music receives, no major platform publishes. The only open measurement is Deezer’s: fully generated tracks made up more than 50% of daily uploads on peak days in June 2026 (on average over June, ≈90 thousand tracks a day), but 1–3% of streams. Goldman Sachs in 2025, as relayed by Music Business Worldwide, estimated the share of AI music at roughly 0.1% of the royalty pool. These estimates have different denominators and dates, but agree on the main point: the flow of files is many times larger than the flow of streams.\n\nThe share of streams on Deezer reflects not only demand but also the platform’s policy: detected full generation is excluded there from algorithmic and editorial recommendations. Spotify does not disclose the share of AI in its catalog.\n\n## 03 · Generators: the money of investors and subscribers\n\n**Suno** is the largest and most transparent of the generators, but even here most of the figures are company statements.\n\n- **Investment.** In May 2024, a $125m round; on November 19, 2025, $250m at a $2.45bn post-money valuation (investors included Menlo Ventures, Nvidia’s NVentures and Hallwood Media); on June 4, 2026, $400m at a $5.4bn valuation, led by Bond. In total, more than $775m.\n- **Revenue.** At the end of 2025 The Wall Street Journal reported ≈$200m of annual revenue (other outlets estimated 2025 revenue at ≈$150m). In February 2026 Shulman wrote of a $300m annual revenue run-rate, the annualized volume of subscriptions for the current month, and 2 million paying subscribers among more than 100 million people who had tried the service. On October 1, 2026, he said the company was “far beyond these numbers,” but gave no new figures.\n- **Costs.** According to an investor presentation described by Billboard, since the start of 2024 Suno has spent about $32m on compute and about $2 thousand on training data. The primary source is closed; we have not seen it. The company has not published audited statements, profit or margin; the figures about a “profitable quarter” and a “78% gross margin” circulating online have no primary source.\n\n
\n\n\nInvestment\n\nRevenue / ARR\n\nCosts\nTotal raised, to June 2026\n\n\n$775m\nRound D, June 2026\n\n\n$400m\nAnnual revenue run-rate, Feb 2026\n\n\n$300m\nRound C, Nov 2025\n\n\n$250m\nAnnual revenue, Nov 2025 (WSJ)\n\n\n$200m\nCompute since 2024 (unconf.)\n\n\n$32m\n\n
Suno has raised more from investors than its claimed annual revenue run-rate: $775m vs $300mSuno (Round C, 19 Nov 2025); TechFundingNews and Goodwin (Round D, 4 Jun 2026); CEO statement in February 2026 via TechCrunch and Unite.AI; WSJ via Unchained Music; compute spending comes from an investor deck described by Billboard, primary source not verified. Annual run-rate revenue (ARR) is a company claim, not audited revenue.
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\n\nInvestors pay for expected growth, not current revenue. In November 2025 Suno’s valuation equaled ≈12 annual run-rates (taking the WSJ estimate of $200m; on an estimate of $150m, ≈16), and in June 2026 ≈18.\n\n
\n\n\n0\n\n10\n\n20\n\n\n12.3\nNov 2025\n\n\n18.0\nJune 2026\nx\n\n
Investors valued Suno at 18 times annualized revenue, against 12–16 half a year earlierNeuroDrift calculation: post-round valuation ($2.45bn and $5.4bn) divided by the latest announced annualized revenue ($200m and $300m); both figures are claims by the company or the press; with 2025 revenue estimated at $150m (The Information, Forbes), the November multiple is ≈16.
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\n\n**Other generators** do not report music revenue separately. ElevenLabs claims a $600m annual revenue run-rate for the whole company (September 2026), but this is mostly voice products; the music service Eleven Music was launched in August 2025 with Merlin and Kobalt licenses, and a UMG license was added in September 2026. Stability AI raised $76m in August 2026, and its shareholders now include Sony Music, UMG and WMG. KLAY Vision obtained licenses from all three majors with ≈$10m of investment. After its settlements, Udio is moving to a closed subscription platform and discloses no figures. Boomy as early as 2023 claimed more than 14 million user-created songs; at that time Spotify removed about 7% of its users’ uploads on suspicion of stream manipulation.\n\nEstimates of the “music generation market” from paid analyst agencies, $1.0–1.2bn in 2026, should be read with caution: the claimed annual run-rate of Suno alone is a quarter of that sum.\n\n
\n\nSoundraw Creator\n\n\n$5.99\nElevenLabs Starter\n\n\n$6\nSuno Pro\n\n\n$10\nElevenLabs Creator\n\n\n$22\nSuno Premier\n\n\n$30\nMubert Pro\n\n\n$39\n\n
A commercial license for AI music costs from $6 to $39 a monthPricing pages of Soundraw, ElevenLabs, Suno and Mubert, checked 2 Nov 2026; monthly billing (Suno on annual billing: $8 and $24). Mubert licenses prohibit uploads to streaming services; ElevenLabs plans cover voice and music together.
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\n\n**The price of a track for the user.** From September 3, 2026, after the deal with Warner Music Group, Suno limited downloads: the free plan allows 7 tracks in total without commercial rights, Pro 20 a month ($10 monthly or $8 on annual billing), Premier 60 ($30 or $24). So one track that can be put on a streaming service costs $0.40–0.50. Suno’s help center says the company does not claim a share of earnings from such tracks, but a commercial license does not guarantee copyright protection and does not oblige any streaming service to accept or pay for the file.\n\n![An empty underground passage at night: an old glass vending machine whose spiral slots hold, instead of snacks, hundreds of identical unlabeled cassettes; a blurred figure in a dark coat walks away; a yellow rubber duck sits on top of the machine](./images/inline-1-avtomat.png)\n\n*The generator sells not songs but access: a monthly subscription with a download limit.*\n\n## 04 · Rightsholders: some lawsuits have become licenses, but without amounts\n\nOn June 24, 2024, Universal, Sony and Warner, coordinated by the RIAA, filed lawsuits against Suno (Massachusetts) and Udio (New York), demanding up to $150 thousand per work, the maximum US law allows. A year and a half later the picture is different:\n\n- **UMG and Udio**, October 29, 2025: a settlement, a license for recordings and lyrics, a new subscription platform trained only on licensed music of artists who agreed to take part; downloads in Udio have been disabled.\n- **WMG and Udio** (November 19) and **WMG and Suno** (November 2025): settlements; Suno committed to release licensed models in 2026, to limit downloads to paid accounts, and bought from WMG the concert recommendation service Songkick.\n- **UMG and Sony v. Suno** are still in litigation: in April 2026, according to the Financial Times, talks reached a deadlock over whether generated tracks can be distributed outside Suno; in May the majors asked the court to add more than 61 thousand recordings to the case. We found no ruling on this motion.\n- **Sony v. Udio**: on July 20, 2026, a second lawsuit, this time over 30,117 recordings. The statutory maximum is up to $4.5bn against ≈$50m in the first lawsuit (according to Unite.AI’s calculation). This is a ceiling of claims, not expected compensation.\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
DatePartiesWhat was agreed
29 Oct 2025UMG — Udiosettlement; license for recordings and lyrics; new subscription platform trained only on licensed music with artist opt-in; downloads disabled
19 Nov 2025WMG — Udiosettlement; move to a licensed subscription platform
Nov 2025WMG — Sunosettlement and license; licensed models from 2026; downloads only for paid accounts with a monthly cap; Suno bought Songkick from WMG
Aug 2025Merlin, Kobalt — ElevenLabslicense with creator opt-in for Eleven Music
20 Nov 2025UMG, Sony, WMG — KLAY Visionlicenses for recordings and lyrics; product not launched as of April 2026
Aug 2026Sony, WMG (reportedly also UMG) — Stability AIlabels became shareholders ($76m round); models built on Warner and EA catalogs
10 Sep 2026UMG — ElevenLabsmulti-year license
8 Sep 2025STIM (Sweden) — Songfox and othersfirst collective AI license: fixed fee + percentage of the service's revenue; percentage not disclosed
Some lawsuits became licenses, but no label deal with a generator has disclosed its amountsPress releases of UMG, Udio, ElevenLabs, STIM; Music Week, Digital Music News, Unite.AI, tech.eu; as of 2 Nov 2026.
\n\nIn Europe, money is decided by courts and collective licenses. On November 11, 2025, the Munich Regional Court found that OpenAI had infringed GEMA’s rights by reproducing the lyrics of nine songs (OpenAI is appealing). In 2026 the same court ruled in favor of GEMA against Suno: training on GEMA’s works in the US and storing and reproducing them in Europe infringes rights, so a license and remuneration are required. This is a first-instance ruling; whether compensation was awarded, and in what amount, sources report differently, and Suno disagrees with the ruling. Sweden’s STIM launched the first collective AI license on September 8, 2025: a fixed fee plus a percentage of the service’s revenue; the percentage itself has not been published.\n\n**How much the labels received is unknown.** UMG’s and WMG’s reports have no separate line for AI revenue. On the call for the third fiscal quarter results on August 5, 2026, WMG CEO Robert Kyncl said he expects licenses with Suno, Udio, Stability and KLAY to make a material contribution to subscription streaming growth from fiscal year 2027 (which began on October 1, 2026), without giving any amount. UMG reported revenue growth of 11.7% in constant currency for the third quarter of 2026 (+5.3% excluding the acquired Downtown) and likewise expects additional revenue from AI partnerships from fiscal year 2027. UMG CEO Lucian Grainge said on the same call that the volume of AI uploads is growing faster than the safeguards, and that paying equally in proportion for all streams only sharpens the problem.\n\nInterests are intertwined: the majors have become shareholders of Stability AI, and Hallwood Media is at once an investor in Suno and a label that signed the best-known AI artist, Xania Monet. Sony, by its own statement to the British government, had by March 2025 sent more than 75 thousand takedown requests for deepfakes of its artists.\n\n## 05 · How streaming pays and why an AI track barely earns\n\nStreaming services have no fixed per-stream rate. Spotify passes almost 70% of revenue to rights holders and divides this pool in proportion to each party’s share of streams. Hence the main effect of mass uploads: files that nobody listens to take nothing, but every paid stream of an AI track, genuine or artificially inflated, reduces the share of everyone else.\n\nThe platforms have changed their rules, and these changes hit mass uploads in particular:\n\n- **Spotify’s threshold.** Since April 2024 a recording must reach at least 1,000 streams over 12 months to earn recording (master) royalties. By Spotify’s estimate, small payouts that, because of minimum payment amounts, usually never reached recipients came to ≈$40m a year; they are now redistributed among others. In October 2026 Spotify reported that tracks with a high likelihood of AI origin are ten times more likely to remain below the threshold.\n- **The Deezer and UMG model** (since October 2023): a “professional artist” — at least 1,000 streams a month from 500 unique listeners — receives double weighting; fully generated tracks are excluded from recommendations, and fraudulent streams are not paid.\n- **TIDAL** has not paid royalties on recordings identified as fully generated since June 29, 2026; **Bandcamp** has banned such recordings since January 13, 2026.\n\n**The arithmetic of one track.** Spotify does not publish its rates. Estimates for 2025–2026 range from ≈$0.001 per stream (which is what follows from Billboard’s estimate for Xania Monet’s songs) to $0.004–0.005 (third-party estimates); the Ukrainian label Hray cites €0.7–1, and Forbes Ukraine €0.6–0.8, per 1,000 streams on Spotify. So a track that has only just cleared the threshold brings its rights holder $1–4 a year. Distribution is cheap: DistroKid charges from $24.99 a year for unlimited uploads. A track pays back its cost on Suno within a few hundred streams — but below 1,000 a year Spotify pays no recording royalties.\n\n
\n\n\n10¢\n\n$1\n\n$10\n\n$100\n\n$1,000\n\n$10,000\nCost of one Suno track\n\n$0.40–0.50\n1,000 streams a year\n\n$1–4\n10,000\n\n$10–40\n100,000\n\n$100–400\n1m\n\n$1,000–4,000\n\n
A track pays for itself within a few hundred streams, but below 1,000 a year Spotify pays no recording royaltiesPrice: Suno plans and upload limits from 3 Sep 2026 ($8–30 for 20–60 tracks a month). The rate of $0.001–0.004 per stream is an estimate: Spotify does not publish rates; the lower bound is a calculation based on Billboard's estimate for Xania Monet, the upper bound comes from third-party estimates. Before distributor fees and taxes; NeuroDrift calculation.
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\n\nNo platform publishes how many AI tracks clear the threshold. The calculator below shows what changes with that share: on the Pro plan, at $2 per 1,000 streams and an average of 3,000 streams per track that clears the threshold, a mass upload pays off only if one track in ten clears it; if such tracks only just exceed the threshold, almost one in three must (NeuroDrift calculation).\n\n

Calculator: does mass uploading of AI tracks pay off?

A model for a single author who generates tracks in Suno and uploads them to streaming services through a distributor on an annual subscription. Choose a plan and set the share of tracks that reach at least 1,000 streams a year (below this threshold Spotify pays no recording royalties).

−$73
Without JavaScript: Pro plan ($10 a month, 20 tracks), 5% of tracks average 3,000 streams at $2 per 1,000. Costs are $145 a year (Suno $120 + distribution $24.99), revenue is $72, the result is a loss of $73. Break-even comes when ≈10% of tracks pass the threshold.

NeuroDrift model, not platform data. It does not account for taxes, distributor fees, the risk of a track being removed, or its streams being deemed artificial. Spotify does not publish its rates; $1–4 per 1,000 is a range of estimates.

\n\nWho wins under this mechanism regardless of how a track performs? The generator (the subscription is paid in advance) and the distributor (a fixed annual fee). For DistroKid, the volume of AI files is a moderation cost, not margin; on September 15, 2026 UMG sued it, accusing it of distributing mass low-quality AI content and copies of other people’s songs.\n\n## 06 · Fraud: the largest documented sums are stolen\n\nThe Smith case is the largest instance we found of money from AI tracks reaching a specific person. According to the 2024 indictment, ≈1,040 bot accounts each streamed ≈636 songs daily, which, by the US Department of Justice’s calculation, yielded about $1.2m in royalties a year (in another copy of the indictment, $1.03m). Hundreds of thousands of generated tracks were needed to spread the artificial streams around and avoid the suspicion that a large number of streams of a single track would raise. The indictment spoke of more than $10m in royalties; in March 2026 Smith pleaded guilty, and the forfeiture came to $8.09m.\n\n
\n\nFrance 2021: fakes (CNM)\n\n\n1–3%\nDeezer 2025: all streams\n\n\n8%\nDeezer 2025: fully AI tracks\n\n\nup to 85%\n\n
Deezer judged up to 85% of streams of fully AI-generated tracks fraudulent, against 8% of all streamsDeezer, press release of 29 Jan 2026 (data from one platform that sells its own detector); Centre national de la musique, 2023 (2021 data, only manipulation detected by Spotify, Deezer and Qobuz; the real rate is higher).
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\n\nThe overall scale of the problem is poorly known. France’s Centre national de la musique (CNM), using 2021 data, counted 1–3% of streams as artificially inflated (only those detected by Spotify, Deezer and Qobuz), with more than 80% outside the top 10,000 tracks. In January 2026 Deezer reported that, among streams of fully generated tracks in 2025, up to 85% were judged fraudulent — against 8% among all streams — and that such streams are not paid. Deezer sells its own detector, so this is a statement by an interested party. We could not trace to a primary source the estimate of “≈10% of all streams and $2bn a year” attributed to detector companies.\n\n![A dark windowless room lit only by dozens of smartphone screens: rows of cheap phones stand in wooden holders on metal shelves, each connected by tangled cables to power strips, with a music player and slider on each screen; on one shelf, between the phones, sits a yellow rubber duck](./images/inline-2-ferma.png)\n\n*Stream manipulation does not need AI, but AI makes its main input cheaper — thousands of “clean” tracks among which the streams are spread.*\n\nThe industry’s response is rules, not technology. Spotify charges distributors a fee for every track with evident artificial streaming (the amount has not been disclosed). On September 14, 2026 the IFPI launched a voluntary Streaming Integrity Initiative: distributors commit to screening uploads for AI and for misuse of others’ identities. By the press’s count, 20–27 companies signed; DistroKid and TuneCore, according to reports, did not.\n\n## 07 · AI artists: the visible winners and their money\n\nThere are hits. The recording “Papaoutai (Afro Soul)” — a generated reworking of a Stromae song — gathered 210.7m global audio streams in the first 24 weeks of 2026 (Luminate). The country project Breaking Rust topped the country digital sales chart in November 2025 with 3,000 sales. Luminate’s sample covers 14 AI projects in the US with catalogs of 4m to 117m streams; this is not a complete count.\n\n
\n\nXania Monet\n\n\n117.24\nBreaking Rust\n\n\n71.33\nRuby Darkrose\n\n\n71.16\nGeorgia Phantom\n\n\n48.30\nCain Walker\n\n\n40.50\nDrew Meadows\n\n\n32.86\nNick Hustles\n\n\n32.75\nKing Willonius\n\n\n27.01\nUnbound Music\n\n\n26.34\nSolomon Ray\n\n\n17.92\nAventhis\n\n\n13.82\nJuno Skye\n\n\n12.58\nEnlly Blue\n\n\n5.73\nThe Velvet Sundown\n\n\n4.39\n\n
The largest AI projects in the US: from 4m to 117m streams across their whole catalogLuminate, Generative AI in Music, Film & TV 2026: US, on-demand audio and video streams, cumulative from the start of tracking to 26 Feb 2026; a Luminate sample, not a full ranking; the degree of human involvement varies.
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\n\nTheir money is far more modest than the headlines. Billboard estimated the potential revenue of five Xania Monet songs as of September 2025 at more than $52,000 — and expressly cautioned that how much the artist and the label received is unknown; reports of offers of up to $3m describe competition for a contract (Billboard called the deal signed with Hallwood Media multimillion-dollar), not royalties paid out. The company Kapwing estimated the combined earnings of the ten largest AI artists on Spotify and YouTube at ≈$6.1m for all time — before deductions for labels, distributors and taxes, assuming $0.004 per stream on Spotify and $2.12 per 1,000 views on YouTube. If the real rate is closer to $0.001, the sum could be several times smaller.\n\n
\n\n\n$1\n\n\n\n\n\n$1 thousand\n\n\n\n\n\n$1m\n\n\n\n\n\n$1bn\nSuno: run-rate, Feb 2026\n\n$300m\nTop 10 AI acts: all-time\n\n$6.1m\nXania Monet: 5 songs, 2025\n\n>$52 thousand\nTrack with 1,000 streams\n\n$1–4\n\n
Suno's annualized revenue is roughly 50 times what the ten biggest AI artists have, by estimate, earned in totalSuno: CEO statement (February 2026); 10 artists: Kapwing estimate via Paste Magazine ($0.004 per stream; Spotify and YouTube, before deductions for labels, distributors and taxes); Xania Monet: Billboard estimate of potential income, not a confirmed payout; last row: NeuroDrift calculation. Different periods: annualized rate vs accumulated total.
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\n\nThe difference between the tool and the product is on the order of 50 times (an order of magnitude, not an exact ratio), and it is not a comparison of one year with one year: Suno’s stated annualized revenue run-rate (ARR) against the cumulative estimate for the most successful artists. No platform publishes the distribution of earnings among the millions of other AI tracks; indirect signals (Spotify’s threshold, Deezer’s recommendations, 85% artificial streams) indicate that the median track earns nothing.\n\n## 08 · Background music: where the replacement of humans is most likely\n\nIf AI does displace paid human music, it is first of all where the buyer needs a “good enough” track: background for videos, advertising, shops, games, and playlists for sleep and concentration. This niche went through a similar substitution even before generative AI. The journalist Liz Pelly (Harper’s, January 2025) described Spotify’s “Perfect Fit Content” program: from roughly 2017, production companies supplied tracks for mood playlists, musicians were paid a one-off fee of a few hundred dollars, and the master recordings stayed with the companies. In 2024 Sweden’s Dagens Nyheter found the composer Johan Röhr, who under ≈650 pseudonyms released more than 2,700 tracks and gathered more than 15bn streams. This is human music; as of November 2026 we found no evidence that AI tracks are getting into such playlists. Spotify says that functional music accounts for a “very small” share of streams and is paid at lower rates.\n\nOne of the largest background-music libraries, Epidemic Sound, did not collapse but went into AI itself: it released its own tools and bought two AI companies. In 2025 its revenue fell 5% in kronor (+3% in constant currency), and its adjusted EBITDA margin turned negative (−3%) because of investment in AI; in the first half of 2026, revenue rose 10% in constant currency and the margin was 10% (unaudited). Artlist, another large supplier, states $260m of annualized revenue run-rate for the whole company at the end of 2025 (the music share is not disclosed) and since March 2026 has sold AI music built on Google’s Lyria models alongside its own human library.\n\n
\n\n\n0\n\n1,000\n\n2,000\n\n\n1,484\n2023\n\n\n1,921\n2024\n\n\n1,828\n2025\nSEK m\n\n
Epidemic Sound: after +29% in 2024, revenue in 2025 fell 5% in SEK but grew 3% in constant currenciesEpidemic Sound, annual reports for 2024 and 2025; group net revenue.
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\n\n
\n\n\n2023\n\n+4%\n2024\n\n+8%\n2025\n\n−3%\nH1 2026\n\n+10%\n\n
Epidemic Sound went negative on adjusted EBITDA while investing in its own AI, and returned to profit within half a year (10%, unaudited)Epidemic Sound: adjusted EBITDA margin; the 2025 loss came from AI investment, per the company's explanation; H1 2026 figures are unaudited.
\n
\n\nThe price pressure is evident: a generator’s commercial license costs $6–39 a month, while a one-off track for Perfect Fit Content cost a few hundred dollars. But we found no measured fall in prices or in the employment of library composers. Surveys conflict: 32.7% of 1,003 US video creators, musicians and marketers had already used AI music as a final track (Berklee, sponsored by Adobe, which sells AI tools); only 6.7% of 1,792 creators accept fully generated content (Uppbeat, which sells human music). Among producers, 6% regularly use generative tools (Tracklib, 2025).\n\n![A small professional recording studio in daytime: a cellist, seen from the side and behind, slowly packs a cello into a hard case in an empty room; a microphone stand without a microphone, headphones on a hook, sheet music on a stand; through the glass, the console in the control room glows and the engineer’s chair is empty; a yellow rubber duck sits on the console](./images/inline-3-studiia.png)\n\n*The greatest pressure is on session and library music, not on the stars.*\n\nForecasts are far sharper than the facts. CISAC and PMP Strategy (December 2024) estimated that by 2028, 24% of music creators’ revenues — €4bn a year — would be at risk compared with a scenario without generative AI, and that ≈60% of music libraries’ revenue would come from AI. The Goldmedia study for GEMA and SACEM put the figure at 27%. Both studies were commissioned by collective management organizations (CMOs), which negotiate licenses. Meanwhile the sync (licensing) market — labels’ money for recordings in film, advertising and games, excluding publishers and libraries — shrank 2% in 2025 to $641m, for the first time in four years. Whether AI is the cause, the IFPI does not say.\n\n
\n\n\n2028 forecast\n\nMeasured\n\nCISAC/PMP: creator income\n\n−24%\nGoldmedia for GEMA, SACEM\n\n−27%\nSync revenue, IFPI, 2025\n\n−2%\nEpidemic Sound, H1 2026\n\n+10%\nRecorded music, IFPI 2025\n\n+6.4%\n\n
Forecasts promise creators a loss of a quarter of their income by 2028; measured changes are small so farCISAC/PMP Strategy, December 2024; Goldmedia for GEMA and SACEM, January 2024 — scenario forecasts commissioned by collective management organizations, compared with a scenario without generative AI; IFPI GMR 2026; Epidemic Sound (constant currencies, unaudited). A forecast and a measured outcome are different quantities.
\n
\n\n## 09 · Law: who can claim royalties at all\n\nCopyright determines whether a fully generated track has the same revenue streams as a human one. Recording (master) royalties, the share of the label and the performer, are paid by streaming services to whoever uploaded the recording and holds the rights to it. Publishing royalties, for the composition and lyrics, are collected by collective management organizations (CMOs), and they require a work created by a human.\n\n- **US.** In January 2025 the US Copyright Office concluded that material generated entirely by AI is not protected and that a prompt alone is not enough for authorship. On March 2, 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, so the rule that the author must be a human stands. Since October 28, 2025, ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN have registered partially generated works and pay for them like any others; fully generated works they do not.\n- **EU.** Only human creativity is protected. From August 2, 2026, Article 50 of the EU AI Act requires generators to label synthetic audio in a machine-readable format (for systems already on the market, lawyers point to a delay until December 2, 2026 under the Digital Omnibus package; we did not verify its final adoption in the EU Official Journal); the fine is up to €15m or 3% of global turnover. On March 10, 2026, the European Parliament (460 votes in favor, 71 against, 88 abstentions) called for a default opt-out from the use of works for training, for transparency and for remuneration; this is a recommendation, not law.\n- **Rights to voice and likeness.** On October 8, 2026, Denmark introduced a bill giving individuals a right to realistic digital copies of their face and voice (entry into force is expected in 2027). The US federal NO FAKES bill, according to the Daily Journal, stalled in the Senate in October 2026.\n- **The UK** in March 2026 dropped the proposed AI-training exception with an opt-out: in the consultation it was backed by 3% of participants, while 88% of online respondents favored licensing in all cases.\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
JurisdictionIs a fully AI track protected?What it means for money
USNo: US Copyright Office (January 2025) and the courts in Thaler; the Supreme Court declined review on 2 Mar 2026ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN have not registered fully AI works since 28 Oct 2025, so there are no author (public performance) royalties; partly AI works are registered
EUNo (only human creativity is protected); Art. 50 of the AI Act requires machine-readable labeling from 2 Aug 2026 (for existing generators, per lawyers, from 2 Dec 2026)Separately, Deezer and TIDAL, under their own rules, do not recommend or do not pay for fully AI tracks; the fine for breaching Art. 50 is up to €15m or 3% of turnover
Germany—Munich court: reproducing lyrics (OpenAI, 11 Nov 2025) and training on and reproducing GEMA works without a license (Suno, 2026) infringe rights; these are first-instance rulings; sources differ on whether damages were awarded
UkraineNot as a work; but Law No. 2811-IX grants a special sui generis right over non-original generated objects for 25 yearsThe Ukrainian copyright agency does not register fully AI works; for hybrid ones, only the human part
A fully AI track is almost nowhere a protected work, so author royalties are not due on itUS Copyright Office; Reed Smith; Hypebot (ASCAP/BMI/SOCAN); GEMA; McCann FitzGerald (AI Act); HSA, Ekonomichna Pravda (Ukraine); as of 2 Nov 2026.
\n\nThe consequence for money is simple: a fully generated track can earn recording royalties where the platform pays them, but in the US and Canada it earns no publishing royalties, and in the EU it has no author on whose behalf they could be collected. That makes it profitable to declare a human contribution, and it is exactly why unverified declarations become a new risk.\n\n## 10 · Ukraine: the sui generis right, AI hits and €1 per thousand streams\n\nIn Ukraine the law describes rights to generated content directly. Law No. 2811-IX “On Copyright and Related Rights” (in force since January 1, 2023) introduced a sui generis right for non-original objects generated by a computer program without direct human involvement. It arises at the moment of generation, lasts 25 years from January 1 of the following year, and belongs to the authors or rights holders of the program or to its lawful user, depending on the terms of the service. Such an object does not become a work. According to Serhiy Shapoval, executive director of the Ukrainian Agency for Copyright and Related Rights, a fully generated piece is not registered, and in a hybrid one only the human part is registered; verification rests on the author’s declaration.\n\nThe market is large in the number of artists and small in money. According to the “Music has power” study, in October 2025 Ukraine had 15,837 artists, 8,151 of whom released at least one single during the year, and the share of Ukrainian-language music in streams grew to 57% (before 2022: 33%). We did not find the total size of the Ukrainian streaming market in dollars.\n\nIn the charts, AI music is, by indirect estimates, noticeable. According to an NGL.media count, the share of AI songs in the top 100 of Ukrainian YouTube rose from 2% to 14% over nine months of 2025; Ekonomichna Pravda, going by indirect signs, estimates that AI may account for at least one in five songs in the weekly top 100. The founder of the NUAM platform, according to LIGA, counted more than 700 Ukrainian AI artists in October 2025, against 101 at the end of 2024. There is no reliable detector behind these counts.\n\n
\n\n\n0\n\n5\n\n10\n\n15\n\n\n2%\nEarly 2025\n\n\n14%\nFall 2025\n%\n\n
By NGL.media's estimate, the share of AI songs in Ukraine's YouTube top 100 rose from 2% to 14% in nine monthsNGL.media via Ekonomichna Pravda, 2025; an estimate based on indirect signals (anonymous channels, mass uploads); there is no reliable detector.
\n
\n\nThe money figures are estimates from labels and journalists, not platform data. The label Hray cites €0.7–1 per 1,000 streams on Spotify, ≈€1 on YouTube Music and €2–2.5 on Apple Music; a channel with ≈60m views, by these estimates, earns $50–70 thousand. Monetized channels are resold for $100–500, and YouTube, according to reports, has since summer 2025 been turning off monetization on AI channels it detects. For comparison: the human hit “Vrubai”, by Forbes Ukraine’s estimate, collected 136m streams and ≈€98.7 thousand in revenue between November 2024 and July 2025, against costs of over €16 thousand.\n\n
\n\n\n€0\n\n€1\n\n€2\n\n€3\n\nHray\n\nForbes Ukraine\nSpotify (Hray)\n\n€0.7–1.0\nSpotify (Forbes Ukraine)\n\n€0.6–0.8\nYouTube Music (Hray)\n\n≈€1\nYouTube (Forbes Ukraine)\n\n€1.0–1.5\nApple Music (Hray)\n\n€2.0–2.5\nApple Music (Forbes Ukraine)\n\n€2.0–3.0\n\n
In Ukraine, 1,000 streams bring in €0.6 to €3, depending on the platformEstimates by the label Hray (Ekonomichna Pravda, dengi.ua, 2025) and Forbes Ukraine (via dev.ua) for Ukrainian hits; not platform data; before distributor fees. YouTube Music (Hray) is \"about €1\".
\n
\n\nWe did not find the positions of Ukrainian CMOs on AI-generated works or on court cases over AI music.\n\n## 11 · The money map\n\nBelow are all the market participants, with the best figure we found and a mark showing how reliable that figure is: reported data, company claim, estimate, undisclosed terms or risk.\n\n

Money map: who earns from AI music, and how well it is documented

Filter by the reliability of the figure and by market participant. As of 2 November 2026.

reported dataBackground music · 2026
Epidemic Sound

Subscriptions for creators and brands; authors receive 50% of revenue plus advance payments; sells its own AI tools.

Revenue of SEK 1,828m in 2025 (−5%; +3% in constant currency), adjusted EBITDA margin −3%; 10% in the first half of 2026 (unaudited).

company claimPlatforms and distribution · 2025
Spotify

Nearly 70% of revenue goes to rights holders in proportion to streams; a track must reach 1,000 streams a year; distributors are fined for clear artificial streaming.

More than $11bn paid to rights holders in 2025. It does not disclose the AI share of its catalog; more than 75m spam tracks were removed in 12 months.

company claimPlatforms and distribution · 2025
YouTube

Advertising and subscription revenue is shared with rights holders; the main source of income for Ukrainian AI channels.

More than $8bn paid to the music industry from July 2024 to June 2025.

company claimGenerators · 2026
Suno

Subscription of $10–30 a month ($8–24 with annual billing); from 3 September 2026, 20 or 60 uploads a month. Costs are compute and the WMG license (amount not disclosed).

$300m annualized revenue run-rate (ARR) and 2m paying subscribers (CEO statement, February 2026); more than $775m in investment, valuation $5.4bn. Profit and margin not disclosed.

company claimGenerators · 2026
ElevenLabs (Eleven Music)

Subscriptions and enterprise licenses; the music is licensed to Merlin and Kobalt and, from September 2026, to UMG.

$600m ARR for the company as a whole, mostly from voice products; the music share is not disclosed.

company claimPlatforms and distribution · 2026
Deezer

Does not pay for fraudulent streams, removes fully AI tracks from recommendations, and sells its own detector.

AI accounts for 1–3% of streams; up to 85% of streams of fully AI tracks in 2025 were deemed fraudulent.

company claimPlatforms and distribution · 2026
Distributors

DistroKid charges a fixed annual fee for unlimited uploads, so AI volume costs it moderation effort, not margin; TuneCore and CD Baby have other pricing models.

DistroKid costs from $24.99 a year; UMG sued it on 15 September 2026. According to press reports, DistroKid and TuneCore did not sign the IFPI initiative against stream manipulation (14 September 2026).

company claimBackground music · 2026
Artlist

Subscriptions for video creators; sells AI music built on Google Lyria models alongside its human-made library.

$260m ARR at the end of 2025 (company statement; the music share is not disclosed).

estimateAI-track authors · 2025
Ukrainian AI channels

YouTube advertising and streaming; monetized channels are resold for $100–500.

≈€0.7–1 per 1,000 streams on Spotify, ≈€1 on YouTube Music (estimates by the Hray label); 60m views ≈ $50–70 thousand.

estimateAI-track authors · 2026
Mass AI uploaders

They pay for the subscription and distribution; they earn only if a track gets more than 1,000 streams and the streams are not deemed artificial.

≈$0.40–0.50 per uploadable track on Suno; 1,000 streams ≈ $1–4 (NeuroDrift calculation based on estimated rates).

estimateAI-track authors · 2026
Prominent AI artists

Royalties and label contracts.

The top 10 earned ≈$6.1m over their lifetime (Kapwing estimate at $0.004 per stream). Xania Monet: according to Billboard, offers reached $3m; the deal was signed with Hallwood Media, which also invested in Suno.

terms not disclosedGenerators · 2026
Stability AI, KLAY Vision

Models built on licensed catalogs (Warner, EA); Stability’s shareholders include Sony and Warner and, according to some reports, UMG.

Stability: $76m round (August 2026); KLAY: ≈$10m in investment, product not launched as of April 2026. License terms not disclosed.

terms not disclosedRights holders · 2026
Universal Music Group

Settlement and licenses with Udio, ElevenLabs, KLAY and Stability; suing Suno and the distributor DistroKid.

Q3 2026 revenue up 11.7% in constant currency (+5.3% excluding the acquired Downtown); there is no separate line for AI revenue, which is expected from fiscal 2027.

terms not disclosedRights holders · 2026
Warner Music Group

Deals with Suno, Udio, Stability and KLAY; sold the Songkick service to Suno.

Management expects AI licenses to make a material contribution to subscription growth from fiscal 2027 (which began on 1 October 2026); it did not name amounts.

terms not disclosedRights holders · 2026
GEMA, STIM, ASCAP/BMI/SOCAN

Lawsuits and licenses for AI companies; STIM charges a fixed fee plus a percentage of the service’s revenue.

GEMA won at first instance against OpenAI (11 November 2025) and Suno (2026); sources differ on whether compensation was awarded; the STIM rate has not been published; ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN do not fully register AI works.

loss or riskHuman musicians · 2025
Independent artists

They share a pro-rata pool that mass uploads dilute; from the settlements they have so far received only promises of voluntary participation.

More than 13,800 artists generated at least $100 thousand on Spotify in 2025; 77% of surveyed musicians in five countries earn less than €10 thousand a year.

loss or riskRights holders · 2026
Sony Music

Suing Suno (together with UMG) and Udio; a shareholder in Stability AI.

Second suit against Udio: 30,117 recordings, up to $4.5bn in statutory damages; this is the ceiling of the claim, not compensation. More than 75,000 deepfake takedown requests (March 2025).

loss or riskFraud · 2026
The Michael Smith case

Hundreds of thousands of AI tracks and ≈1,040 bot accounts: ≈661 thousand streams a day.

More than $10m in royalties according to the charges; 18 months in prison and forfeiture of $8.09m (6 October 2026).

loss or riskHuman musicians · 2028
Library composers

Advance fees, a share of library revenue, royalties; by market structure, the first to come under pressure from cheap background music (no measurements).

CISAC: 24% of authors’ income at risk by 2028 (forecast); label revenue from sync of recordings fell 2% in 2025 (libraries are not included).

no dataGenerators · 2025
Udio

After settlements with UMG and WMG it is moving to a closed subscription platform; downloads are disabled.

Revenue and user numbers not disclosed. Sony demands up to $4.5bn, the statutory maximum for 30,117 recordings, not an awarded sum.

\n\n## 12 · What next\n\nWhat follows are NeuroDrift’s analytic scenarios, not forecasts from sources.\n\n- **First numbers from the labels.** WMG’s fiscal 2027 began on October 1, 2026. If the company breaks out revenue from AI licenses in its 2027 reports, the market will see for the first time how much generators pay for catalogs. Until that sum is known, any claim about “money returning to artists” is an assumption.\n- **Licensed models are more expensive.** Suno promised licensed models in 2026 and has already restricted downloads. License payments are a new cost line for a generator that did not exist when it spent, according to a presentation described by Billboard, about $2 thousand on data. How this will affect margins cannot be checked without financial reporting.\n- **Courts.** The UMG and Sony case against Suno in Massachusetts, Sony’s suit against Udio covering 30,117 recordings, and a possible appeal of the Munich court’s ruling will set the price of training on other people’s catalogs.\n- **Payout rules.** UMG is pushing for mass AI uploads to be paid differently from human music; Deezer promised a switch by the end of 2026 that would remove fully generated tracks from search; Spotify labels synthetic artists and does not recommend them by default. Each such change moves money from the uploaders to the rest of the pool.\n- **The forecast gap.** Goldman Sachs (October 2026) expects generative AI, in its base case, to add $3.3bn to the market by 2035, mostly for streaming services and the majors. CISAC expects €4bn of generator revenue in 2028, against Suno’s annualized run-rate of ≈$0.3bn today. The divergence shows how uncertain the revenue model itself is.\n\n**What to track:** the share of AI in paid streams across several platforms (not only Deezer), the median income of declared AI authors at distributors, a separate line for AI revenue in UMG and WMG reports, STIM and GEMA rates for AI services, and Suno’s audited financials if the company goes public.\n\n## Honesty and limitations\n\n**The strongest argument that “AI music already earns money.”** Consumers pay real money: at the end of 2025 the WSJ estimated Suno’s annual revenue at ≈$200m, and in February 2026 the company claimed $300m in annualized revenue run-rate (the definitions differ) and 2m paying subscribers. AI hits such as “Papaoutai (Afro Soul)” gather hundreds of millions of streams. The labels have already signed licenses and expect revenue from 2027, and Goldman Sachs sees AI as a net plus for the market. Producers save on stem separation, mastering and demos, but that benefit shows up as lower costs, not as royalties from AI tracks.\n\n**The strongest argument against.** Almost all the key figures are claims by interested parties: Suno’s revenue is not audited, the data on the share and artificial streaming of AI tracks come from Deezer, which sells a detector, and the loss forecasts were commissioned by collective management organizations. No platform publishes the distribution of earnings of AI tracks, so the conclusion that “the median track earns nothing” rests on indirect signs.\n\n**Limitations of this review.** Several sources (Billboard, Music Business Worldwide, Financial Times) are behind paywalls; we took figures from them through retellings in other outlets and marked this. Per-stream rates are estimates, not platform data; amounts in dollars, euros and kronor have not been converted at a single exchange rate. The Ukrainian shares of AI in the charts were derived from indirect signs. We made no measurements of our own.\n\n## Sources\n\n- Market and streaming: [IFPI Global Music Report 2026](https://www.ifpi.org/global-music-report-2026-global-recorded-music-revenues-grow-6-4-as-record-companies-drive-innovation/), [Spotify: payouts for 2025](https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-01-28/2025-music-industry-payouts-whats-next-for-artists/), [Hypebot: Loud & Clear 2026](https://www.hypebot.com/spotify-loud-clear-report-2026-11b-paid-as-global-musical-middle-class-expands), [YouTube: $8bn to the music industry](https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/8-billion-youtubes-twin-engine-continues-to-fuel-the-future-of-music/), [Goldman Sachs Music in the Air 2026 (Hypebot)](https://www.hypebot.com/goldman-sachs-2026-music-report-the-monetization-era/), [IFPI on sync in 2025 (Digital Music News)](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2026/03/18/global-music-industry-revenue-2025/).\n- Deezer and volumes: [AI above 50% of uploads](https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/07/ai-music-exceeds-50-percent-daily-uploads-deezer/), [demonetization and 85% of fraudulent streams](https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/01/deezer-confirms-demonetization-of-ai-music/), [AI toggle](https://newsroom-deezer.com/2026/10/deezer-ai-music-toggle/), [Deezer/Ipsos](https://newsroom-deezer.com/2025/11/deezer-ipsos-survey-ai-music/), [Spotify: One Year In](https://newsroom.spotify.com/2026-10-20/prioritizing-human-artistry/), [Luminate: Midyear 2026](https://luminatedata.com/blog/luminate-2026-midyear-report-trends-in-music-television-film/), [Luminate: Generative AI in Music 2026](https://luminatedata.com/reports/generative-ai-in-music-film-tv/).\n- Generators: [Suno: Series C](https://suno.com/blog/series-c-announcement), [Suno: 2024 round](https://suno.com/blog/fundraising-announcement-may-2024), [TechFundingNews: Series D](https://techfundingnews.com/suno-raises-400m-at-5-4b-valuation-as-ai-music-hits-300m-arr/), [Goodwin: Series D](https://www.goodwinlaw.com/en/news-and-events/news/2026/06/announcements-technology-goodwin-guides-suno-400-million-series-d), [Unite.AI: 2m subscribers and $300m](https://www.unite.ai/suno-reaches-2-million-paid-subscribers-and-300m-arr-in-two-years), [Digital Music News: Shulman’s statement, October 2026](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2026/10/01/suno-revenue-october-2026/), [Billboard: Suno pitch deck](https://www.billboard.com/pro/suno-creates-spotify-catalog-music-two-weeks-pitch-deck/), [Suno download limits](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2026/08/10/suno-limiting-downloads-ai-slop/), [Suno pricing](https://suno.com/pricing), [Suno rights](https://help.suno.com/en/articles/9601665), [ElevenLabs: $600m](https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/ai-tools-news/elevenlabs-600-million-arr-ceo-ipo-ai-disclosure-2026/), [Stability AI: $76m round](https://tech.eu/2026/08/25/stabiityai-raises-76m-with-warner-and-sony-investing/), [KLAY Vision](https://thebridge.jp/2025/12/klay-vision-ai-music-major-labels-licensing-deal), [Boomy and Spotify, 2023](https://iol.co.za/entertainment/music/international/2023-05-08-spotify-removes-music-from-ai-music-app-boomy-promises-tough-action-on-artificial-streaming/), pricing for [Soundraw](https://soundraw.io/pricing), [ElevenLabs](https://elevenlabs.io/pricing), [Mubert](https://mubert.com/render/pricing).\n- Lawsuits and licenses: [UMG: Udio](https://tools.prnewswire.com/en-us/live/20813/release/20251029EN10848), [Digital Music News: everything about the UMG and Udio deal](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2025/10/29/umg-udio-deal-everything-we-know/), [Music Week: WMG and Suno](https://www.musicweek.com/labels/read/warner-music-group-settles-lawsuit-and-signs-ai-licensing-deal-with-suno/093129), [WMG: Udio](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/music/music-industry-news/warner-music-group-settles-lawsuit-udio-1236431207/), [the UMG and Suno impasse](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2026/04/09/suno-universal-music-lawsuit-settlement-impasse/), [61,000 recordings](https://musicbusinessworldwide.com/umg-and-sony-seek-to-add-61000-copyrighted-works-to-suno-lawsuit-after-discovery-reveals-suno-trained-on-millions-of-their-recordings), [Sony: second suit against Udio](https://www.unite.ai/sony-music-escalates-copyright-fight-with-second-udio-suit/), [ElevenLabs, Merlin and Kobalt](https://musicbusinessworldwide.com/eleven-music-new-ai-rival-to-suno-launches-with-merlin-kobalt-licensing-deals-in-the-bag), [GEMA v Suno](https://www.gema.de/en/w/gema-prevails-over-suno), [GEMA v OpenAI](https://www.gema.de/en/w/landmark-ruling-gema-against-openai), [STIM: AI license](https://www.stim.se/en/news/stim-launches-the-worlds-first-ai-license-for-music), [WMG on AI revenue](https://rightstech.com/2026/08/warner-music-expects-ai-music-deals-to-boost-streaming-revenue-from-late-2026/), [WMG: third-quarter call](https://www.marketbeat.com/instant-alerts/warner-music-group-q3-earnings-call-highlights-2026-08-06/), [UMG: Q3 2026](https://www.musicweek.com/labels/read/we-will-keep-evolving-from-a-position-of-strength-umg-revenue-up-12-in-q3/095366), [Grainge on AI and pro-rata payouts](https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/ai-music-news/lucian-grainge-ai-slop-pro-rata-dsp-deals-umg-q3-2026-earnings-call/), [Sony: deepfake takedown requests](https://routenote.com/blog/sony-music-reveals-deepfake-takedowns/).\n- Payouts and fraud: [Spotify: 1,000-stream threshold (Music Week)](https://www.musicweek.com/digital/read/spotify-to-limit-royalties-to-tracks-with-more-than-1-000-annual-streams/088890), [Spotify royalties guide](https://artists.spotify.com/en/royalties-guide), [the Deezer and UMG model](https://musictech.com/news/industry/universal-deezer-new-streaming-model/), [TIDAL: AI policy](https://tidal.com/ai-policy), [Bandcamp](https://blog.bandcamp.com/2026/01/13/keeping-bandcamp-human/), [DistroKid: pricing](https://distrokid.com/pricing/), [CNM: stream manipulation in France](https://cnm.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Note-Jean-Philippe-Theillay-Manipulation-des-ecoutes-en-ligne_EN.pdf), [US Department of Justice: indictment of Smith](https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence), [Smith sentencing](https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-man-sentenced-18-months-prison-super-intelligence-assisted-music), [WBTV: copy of the indictment](https://www.wbtv.com/2024/09/04/north-carolina-musician-charged-with-music-streaming-fraud-aided-by-ai/), [IFPI: initiative against stream manipulation](https://thenextweb.com/news/ifpi-streaming-integrity-initiative-streaming-fraud), [UMG v DistroKid](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-music-group-sues-distrokid/).\n- AI artists: [Billboard: how many AI artists have charted](https://billboard.substack.com/p/how-many-ai-artists-have-debuted), [Billboard: Xania Monet’s earnings](https://radiox.cms.socastsrm.com/2025/09/24/ai-artist-xania-monet-has-racked-up-millions-of-streams-how-much-money-is-that-worth/), [Billboard Country Update](https://bulletins.billboard.com/country/country_update_2025_1103.pdf), [Paste: Kapwing estimate](https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/ai-music/10-biggest-ai-music-artists-have-made-millions).\n- Background music: [Epidemic Sound: 2025 report](https://corporate.epidemicsound.com/press-and-media/press-releases/2026/epidemic-group-publishes-2025-annual-and-sustainability-report-a-transformative-year-investing-significantly-into-ai-and-bringing-the-company-back-to-profitable-growth-in-2026/), [2024 report](https://corporate.epidemicsound.com/press-and-media/press-releases/2025/epidemic-sound-publishes-its-2024-annual-report-and-sustainability-report/), [Artlist: $260m](https://webdisclosure.com/press-release/artlist-ltd-etr-finishing-2025-at-260m-arr-artlist-unveils-the-future-of-ai-video-production-with-a-full-scale-ai-ecosystem-nPYSh9073JX), [Artlist and Lyria](https://persportaal.anp.nl/artikel/CSN-260326080/artlist-expands-its-ai-platform-with-professional-grade-ai-music-for-video-production), [Harper’s: Liz Pelly](https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/), [overview of the fake-artists controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversy_over_fake_artists_on_Spotify), [Hypebot: Johan Röhr](https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2025/08/ghost-musicians-and-the-era-of-perfect-fit-content-on-streaming.html), [Spotify: functional music](https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/article/functional-music/), [Berklee: In Sync 2026](https://www.berklee.edu/beatl/in-sync-music-and-video-2026), [Uppbeat](https://www.aimusicpreneur.com/ai-music-news/uppbeat-creator-report-2026-ai-acceptance-survey/), [Tracklib (MusicTech)](https://musictech.com/news/industry/music-producers-are-rejecting-ai-study-reveals-over-80-of-producers-are-against-ai-generated-songs).\n- Forecasts and musicians’ incomes: [CISAC/PMP Strategy](https://www.cisac.org/services/reports-and-research/cisacpmp-strategy-ai-study), [CISAC press release](https://www.cisac.org/Newsroom/news-releases/global-economic-study-shows-human-creators-future-risk-generative-ai), [GEMA and SACEM: Goldmedia](https://www.gema.de/en/w/gema-sacem-unveil-results-of-ai-study), [Oxford Internet Institute: musicians in the platform era](https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/reports/musicians-at-work-in-the-platform-and-ai-era/).\n- Law: [US Copyright Office: AI](https://www.copyright.gov/ai/), [Reed Smith: Thaler](https://www.reedsmith.com/our-insights/blogs/viewpoints/102mlpl/supreme-court-denies-certiorari-in-thaler-v-perlmutter-human-only-rule-for-ai/), [ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN](https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2025/10/with-ascap-bmi-and-socan-unity-a-new-era-for-human-creators-and-ai-tools.html), [EU AI Act, Article 50](https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/50/), [McCann FitzGerald: labeling](https://www.mccannfitzgerald.com/knowledge/technology-and-innovation/one-month-to-go-eu-ai-act-transparency-compliance), [ECSA: European Parliament resolution](https://composeralliance.org/news/2026/3/press-release-ecsa-welcomes-the-european-parliament-s-report-on-copyright-and-generative-ai-and-calls-on-the-european-commission-to-duly-take-into-account-its-recommendations/), [UK: copyright and AI](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence-progress-report/copyright-and-artificial-intelligence-statement-of-progress-under-section-137-data-use-and-access-act), [Euronews: Denmark](https://www.euronews.com/2026/10/08/denmark-introduces-a-bill-protecting-peoples-faces-and-voices-from-deepfakes), [Daily Journal: NO FAKES](https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/395055-no-fakes-act-dead-for-now-as-cruz-objects-to-unanimous-consent-request).\n- Ukraine: [Law No. 2811-IX](https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/2811-20), [HSA: non-original computer-generated objects](https://www.hsa.org.ua/blog/shho-take-neoriginalni-objekti-zgenerovani-kompiuternoiu-programoiu-ta-iaki-prava-maiut-subjekti), [Ekonomichna Pravda: AI hits and earnings](https://epravda.com.ua/tehnologiji/yak-shtuchniy-intelekt-zminyuye-muzichnu-industriyu-hitovi-shi-treki-ta-zarobitok-818566/), [dengi.ua: how Ukrainians earn from AI music](https://dengi.ua/ua/amp-page/suspilstvo/9759192-shi-muzika-zakhoplyuje-charti-yak-ukrayintsi-zaroblyayut-na-muzplatformakh), [dev.ua: how much Ukrainian hits earned](https://dev.ua/en/news/ukrainski-khity-na-stryminhovykh-servisakh-prynosiat-desiatky-tysiach-ievro-skilky-zarobyly-vrubai-smarahdove-nebo-ta-tvoia-1764862061), [LIGA: the AI music boom](https://tech.liga.net/en/technology/article/ai-music-boom-how-ukrainians-generate-songs-and-whats-the-profit), [Euromaidan Press: “Music has power”](https://euromaidanpress.com/2025/11/19/ukrainian-language-music-consumption-jumps-to-57-as-streaming-data-shows-cultural-shift-during-war/)." }