Topic
So far, every deal that pays for training AI on music runs through an intermediary (a label, publisher, distributor, collecting society or sample marketplace), and almost none publishes a rate. Here is how the four deal structures work, what the law says in the EU, UK, US and India as of 23 Oct 2026, and what an independent artist can actually claim.
Workflows
Three gatekeepers now ask about AI, and each asks a different question. The US Copyright Office wants to know which parts a human made, PROs want a human writer, and distributors increasingly care which tool you used and how it was trained. Here is what each rule says as of 23 Oct 2026, a checklist that covers all three, and the mistakes that cost artists money.
Workflows
In its answer to Universal and Sony's second lawsuit, Suno admits it has not deleted all the recordings it trained on, and repeats that v6 learned from "creations and preference signals" from its community. That makes Suno's own users part of the training pipeline the labels call laundering, under a licence they can't take back.
Artist rightsvia US District Court for the District of Massachusetts (via Music Business Worldwide)
The US Copyright Office can bring in its new fee schedule from 11 November 2026. Registering an album of sound recordings doubles from $65 to $130. If you self-release music in the US, you have under three weeks to register your backlog at current prices, and singles-first artists stand to lose the most.
Artist rightsvia U.S. Copyright Office
Bombay High Court orders have shielded Arijit Singh and Asha Bhosle from AI voice clones, but the government committee drafting India's AI-copyright rules has not met since June, and its plan would let AI firms train on recordings without permission. Famous voices have a remedy; everyone else is waiting.
Artist rightsvia Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)
One email a week: the music-tech and AI-in-music news that mattered, and what we think about it.