Apple Music has told partners that music “materially generated” on AI platforms such as Suno will carry a “Made With AI” label on the service from later this year.
At least, that is, if record labels and distributors tag the music with the relevant metadata before it reaches the platform.
The move was announced in a message to industry partners from Apple on Thursday (August 20), obtained by MBW.
It will make a tagging system visible to listeners that Apple Music has run behind the scenes since March, when it introduced what it calls AI Transparency Tags.
Those tags let record labels and distributors flag AI use across a track, its composition, its artwork, or a music video, and have so far been visible only in Apple‘s content delivery feed.
“When record labels and distributors submit any piece of content that was materially generated using AI, we ask that they tag it as such,” Apple wrote in today’s memo to partners.
“Later this year, we will also make these tags visible to Apple Music users in the form of Made With AI Labels.”
Apple added that content providers “will be required to include AI Transparency Tags in any instance where AI was used to create a material portion of the content, including tracks that are AI-platform-generated.”
“We define AI-platform-generated content as anything that is primarily derived from a generative AI service,” the company said.
You’ll notice that the “requirement” here sits with the supply chain, not the platform: Apple Music does not detect AI content itself for the purpose of the labels, relying instead on labels and distributors to declare it – the approach it took when it launched the tags in March.
Apple‘s reliance on self-reporting stands in contrast to news from Spotify issued earlier this month.
On August 11, Spotify introduced an “AI Persona” badge for artist profiles built around an AI-generated identity.
Spotify said it “won’t rely on self-disclosure alone” for these badges, and will review profiles itself to flag those whose public identity “appears to represent photorealistic AI-generated identities.”
Spotify’s badge marks the artist, though, not the music. For that, Spotify uses the same kind of self-disclosed credits that Apple‘s labels rely on.
Today’s news arrives against a relevant regulatory backdrop: the EU AI Act’s transparency rules, in force since August 2, require providers of generative AI systems to embed machine-readable markers in the content they produce.
Generative AI services that were already on the market before that date – Suno among them – have until December 2 to meet the marking requirement.
Suno said on August 6 that it would adopt audio watermarking and fingerprinting “in the coming weeks,” to work with distribution platforms on “combatting fraud and misuse.”
Markers embedded at the point of generation would, in theory, make AI tracks easily identifiable downstream – giving labels and distributors a technical means of spotting AI content before they tag it for Apple Music or other DSPs.
Apple Music‘s message to partners today, in full, reads:
Introducing Made With AI Labels in Apple Music
In March, Apple Music introduced AI Transparency Tagging in the content delivery feed. When record labels and distributors submit any piece of content that was materially generated using AI, we ask that they tag it as such.
Later this year, we will also make these tags visible to Apple Music users in the form of Made With AI Labels.
As we implement Made With AI Labels, content providers will be important partners. They are best positioned to know how their content was created, and the AI Transparency Tags that should be used.
Content providers will be required to include AI Transparency Tags in any instance where AI was used to create a material portion of the content, including tracks that are AI platform generated. We define AI-platform-generated content as anything that is primarily derived from a generative AI service.
The goal with our Made With AI Labels is to provide listeners with as much transparency as possible. For more on how Apple Music handles AI-generated content, please refer to our Music Style Guide.Music Business Worldwide
