Spain's official charts set AI rules: substantially human, lawful and disclosed

Spain's official music charts now have written rules for recordings made with generative AI. On 24 Sep 2026, Promusicae and AGEDI announced that their boards had formally approved a set of eligibility principles. They had already been applying them for several weeks. Promusicae, which has compiled Spain's official sales charts since 1986, says its more than 100 member companies account for over 90% of the country's recorded music activity. AGEDI, the collecting society for phonogram producers, has worked with it on the charts since 2010.

The rules aren't Spanish inventions. They are the principles IFPI rolled out on 30 Jul 2026 for the 11 chart programmes it runs directly, across the Middle East and North Africa, Southeast Asia, South Africa and Latin America. Spain was on IFPI's list of more than 20 further national charts it wanted to bring in.

What do the rules say?

Under the principles Promusicae and AGEDI published, a recording made with generative AI should be kept off the charts where there is "reason to believe" it fails any of six tests:

• the AI services used are properly authorised and lawful;
• the recording is substantially human made;
• it raises no stream or chart manipulation concerns;
• it complies with the law, including copyright, related rights and personality rights;
• releasing it doesn't breach the terms of the AI service used;
• its use of generative AI is signalled to listeners on downstream services, in line with the law or industry labelling standards.

The announcement says the aim is to separate human-led creative work from purely synthetic tracks, or tracks made with unauthorised AI models, and to keep out tracks whose streams were inflated by fraud. Antonio Guisasola, president of both bodies, described the principles as a clear and practical framework for legitimate AI use.

What counts as "substantially human made"?

Neither the Spanish announcement nor IFPI's defines it. Neither says who makes the call day to day, what evidence an artist would need, or how high the "reason to believe" bar is.

The closest thing to a definition is the voluntary labelling scheme announced on 10 Jul 2026 by IFPI, the RIAA, A2IM, WIN, IMPALA, the Grammys, SAG-AFTRA and the Human Artistry Campaign. It calls a recording "AI-Generated" when AI produced all or most of its creative elements, such as the lead vocal or a key instrumental performance, or when the whole thing came from a prompt. "AI-Assisted" means humans made the recording and performed the lead vocal and main instruments, with AI used for some expressive elements. The scheme says it doesn't yet cover AI use in lyrics, composition, music videos or cover art.

How does Spain compare with ARIA and Beatport?

ARIA applied IFPI's principles to the Australian charts from the chart dated 31 Aug 2026, but its code sets only two conditions: a recording made with generative AI must be substantially human made, and must raise no stream or chart manipulation concerns. It says wholly AI-generated tracks are out and tracks that use AI in a supporting role can stay, and it ties its definitions to the 10 July labelling standard. ARIA also spelled out the penalties: it can exclude a recording, retrospectively if needed, change chart positions, withdraw accreditations and take back an ARIA #1 Award. And it updated its disputes process so artists and their representatives can challenge an exclusion and submit evidence.

Beatport is a store rather than a national chart, but it drew a similar line on 12 Aug 2026. It no longer accepts tracks that are fully or mostly AI-generated, uses Beatdapp's detection to withhold them at ingestion and notify the rights holder, and tags accepted AI-assisted tracks for its curators. It doesn't put a number on "majority human-made" either, and its announcement doesn't describe an appeal.

Spain sits between the two. It goes further than ARIA on eligibility, adopting all six IFPI tests, including the requirement that the AI service used be authorised and lawful, which ARIA's code doesn't contain. It refers to the same AI-Generated and AI-Assisted labelling approach. But its public announcement describes no dispute route.

What does it mean for artists in Spain?

For most artists, nothing changes in practice. A song written, sung and played by people, with AI used for a backing part or a clean-up pass, looks like the "AI-Assisted" case the rules are built to allow.

The detail to watch is the first test. Chart eligibility depends partly on whether the AI service was "properly authorised and lawful", and whether releasing the track breaches that service's terms. That is a question about the vendor, not about your work. Two producers could make equally human records, and the one who used an unlicensed generator for a string pad would, read literally, be the one at risk. Most artists can't audit how a tool was trained, so in practice this rewards tools with licensing deals the industry recognises.

It also lines up with Spanish copyright law. As Ferrer-Bonsoms & Sanjurjo explain, the Spanish Intellectual Property Act says the author of a work is the natural person who creates it. A track generated entirely by AI with no significant human contribution is, in principle, not protected. The firm advises keeping drafts, earlier versions and session recordings as evidence of authorship, and that same file is what you would need if a chart exclusion were ever disputed.

What we think

The principles are a reasonable floor. Charts are supposed to measure what people choose to hear from artists, and keeping fully synthetic catalogues and bot-inflated streams off them protects human artists' share of a scarce spotlight. Spain allowing AI-assisted work, rather than banning AI outright, is the right call.

But we have three concerns.

First, who writes the rules. The principles came from a record-label coalition and IFPI says the three majors were part of it. In Spain they are applied by bodies representing labels and phonogram producers. The Spanish announcement itself says record companies are working to develop and license AI music services. Making "authorised" AI a condition of chart eligibility helps protect artists from tools trained without consent. It also gives the labels' licensed partners a commercial edge. Both can be true, and the rules would be more credible if artist and songwriter groups had a formal say in applying them.

Second, due process. A "reason to believe" test with no published definition and no public appeal puts the burden on whoever is excluded, and that is likelier to be an independent artist than a major-label act with a legal team. ARIA showed that a dispute route can be written into the code. Promusicae and AGEDI should publish theirs, along with how decisions are made.

Third, what's left out. The labelling scheme doesn't cover lyrics or composition yet, so it isn't clear whether an AI-written song sung by a human would count as "substantially human made". Spain's announcement doesn't say.

Our advice for artists releasing in Spain: declare AI use honestly through your distributor, keep your session files and drafts, and know which tools in your chain have licensing deals. If a release drops out of the charts unexpectedly, ask your label or distributor which test it failed, and on what evidence.