The Human Signal #49 – Uh Oh, AI Music Just Got a Rights Body [AIWFT? 4/11]

Hello and welcome to The Human Signal podcast, this is part four of an eleven part series I’ve made called AIWTF?, about the most recent developments in our increasingly AI saturated music industry. In this episode, I’m talking about a newly launched organisation in the US called AIMPRO, which positions itself as a performance rights organisation for AI-generated music. It’s a very recent development, and one that’s been sitting uncomfortably with me.I walk through what AIMPRO claims to offer—royalty collection, licensing, and infrastructure for AI music creators—and question how any of this can function when the underlying legal framework around copyright and ownership is still unresolved. Platforms like Suno have already indicated that they cannot guarantee copyright protection for AI-generated works, particularly where there is limited human authorship, which raises a fundamental question about what is actually being licensed or monetised.This episode sits right in the middle of a rapidly shifting landscape, where new systems are being built before existing ones have been clarified. It brings up deeper tensions around fairness, authorship, and who is being recognised—or ignored—in this new version of the music industry.Full episode descriptionToday I’m asking the question: is this the birth of AI rights? AIMPRO, not to be confused with the UK-based trade body with the same acronym, is the AI Music Performance Rights Organization. It’s a brand new US-based company launched in April 2026 as the first performance rights organisation dedicated specifically to generative AI music creators. It aims to collect and distribute royalties for AI-generated works and establish a formal rights framework for this emerging sector.From their website, AIMPRO is designed to serve creators of generative AI works, allowing them to collect royalties globally. They offer services to monetise AI music, including registration, royalty collection, licensing, and metadata tagging. They claim to collect royalties from streaming, public performance, sync licensing, and more, and to connect AI music creators with licensing opportunities across platforms worldwide.I don’t even know where to start with this. I don’t know how this can exist or move forward at all, but I’m sure it probably will. Given the sheer volume of AI-generated music being created every day—tens of thousands of tracks—it could grow very quickly. It’s very unnerving.What’s confusing is that there has been no resolution around the lawsuits concerning royalty payouts to human artists whose work is used to train these systems. Yet at the same time, new organisations are forming and acting as if a framework already exists. It feels like people are just setting things up and hoping for the best. What is copyright anymore?If we look at platforms like Suno, their own terms of service state that AI-generated music cannot be copyrighted. You may own the file if you’ve paid for a subscription, but you cannot claim copyright over it. That means you can upload it anywhere, but you can’t stop someone else from doing the same thing with it. There’s no enforceable ownership.So how can a new organisation claim to license or monetise something that isn’t legally protected? What exactly are they providing? For AIMPRO to deliver on its promises, the person uploading the music would need a clear and enforceable right to license it, which currently doesn’t exist.This adds another layer of tension to an already unstable situation between major labels, independent artists, and AI platforms. Up to now, the arguments have centred on training data—whether AI companies owe compensation for using existing music. That’s still unresolved, largely due to claims of fair use.Now AIMPRO is attempting to legitimise AI-generated music by advocating for prompters to be treated as creatives entitled to compensation. But these prompters are generating music using systems built on the work of human musicians. They are using words to produce outputs that rely entirely on pre-existing creative labour.So how can they be entitled to compensation when the original creators are still fighting for theirs? It doesn’t make sense. It feels completely out of alignment. The idea that AI is seeking rights while humans are still struggling to secure theirs is hard to process.This leads into the topic of fair use, which I’ll be covering in more detail in the next episode. I’ll be looking at what counts as fair use and where the line is drawn into copyright infringement.If you’ve been following the series so far, thank you for sticking with it. There’s still quite a bit to go, and things are changing so quickly that by the time I reach the end, there will likely be even more developments. It’s moving at a pace that’s very difficult to keep up with.If you enjoyed this podcast please share it with a friend or consider leaving a comment or review, it really helps me out. You can also support me and my work by becoming a paid member, it’s €5 per month on Substack and Patreon. And lastly, you can still find me on YouTube / Instagram as @the_persona_project__ & @laurasheeran_ie . That's all for now. Thanks for being here, and remember: Put humans first. Don't feed the machines. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit laurasheeran.substack.com/subscribe