Releasing AI music: what BumaStemra, Suno and Spotify expect from you

You’ve made a track with help from AI. Maybe a language model wrote the lyrics, maybe the beat came out of Suno and you sang over it yourself. Before you release it, you want to know what to register with BumaStemra, whether you can sell the track and whether your distributor will let it through.

Releasing AI music in the Netherlands means dealing with BumaStemra, the Dutch collecting society for songwriters and publishers, which only pays out for human work, with the provider of your AI tool, whose terms decide what you may do with the output, and with your distributor, which wants you to hold all the rights. For songwriters, producers, artists and publishers, we set out what you can claim and where the risk lies.

Not sure whether your AI track is ready for release? Call 020 675 88 21 or send a message.

What BumaStemra registers when you compose with AI

BumaStemra only pays out for what a human has made. Since early 2025 you can also register works in which AI did part of the work. You register the human part in your own name and the AI part under the fictitious rightsholder AI BUMASTEMRA (IPI number 01252737944). If a language model wrote the lyrics and you composed the music, you are only paid for the composition. The other way round, only for the lyrics. Your work therefore takes a smaller share of what BumaStemra distributes.

If you used AI as a tool and made the creative choices yourself, you register the work in the usual way and receive the full amount. A track generated entirely by AI, without any creative input from you, cannot be registered. Nothing is collected for it.

BumaStemra does not decide where the line between tool and author lies. You make that call yourself when you register. If it comes to a dispute, a court decides. If you register an unusually large number of works in a year and detection software confirms the suspicion that AI did most of the work, BumaStemra may charge an administrative fee, among other measures, unless your own evidence shows otherwise. So keep a record for each track of how it came about: your prompts, your own recordings and your edits. You can do this through MyMusicSafe in the members’ portal.

When copyright protects music you make with AI

The Dutch Copyright Act (Auteurswet) expressly lists musical works with or without words as protected works (article 10(1), item 5). Copyright belongs to the author of such a work (article 1). Under European copyright law, that is a human being who puts a personal stamp on the work through free and creative choices. A prompt that leaves the AI all the room it wants will usually not get you there.

There is no Dutch judgment on AI music yet. German courts have given some direction, for example on self-written lyrics set to music made with AI. We discuss those judgments on our page about AI and copyright.

The recording runs on a separate track. The Dutch Neighbouring Rights Act (Wet op de naburige rechten) protects the producer of a phonogram, the party that first makes a sound recording or has it made (article 1(c) and (d)). No creativity is required for that. No court has yet decided whether an audio file generated by an AI service counts as such a recording. For your income, the difference between composition and recording matters a great deal, because BumaStemra pays out for the composition and the lyrics. For the recording, streaming services pay through your distributor.

Suno tracks after the Munich judgment

On 31 July 2026 the Munich Regional Court (Landgericht München I) ruled in a case brought by the German collecting society GEMA that Suno had infringed six well-known songs, including Rasputin and Forever Young (case number 42 O 763/25). Suno’s models turned out to contain those works, because they came back recognisably in output generated with simple prompts, using only the original lyrics, a style and a title. The court held Suno liable for that output, not the user who entered the prompt. The judgment is not final.

Read what the judgment against Suno means for creators →

For you as a creator that is only half reassuring, because the court ruled on what Suno produced and not on what a user did with the track afterwards. If you release a track in which an existing melody comes back recognisably, you are the one making that song available to the public. In our view, that means you infringe as well, even if the melody came from the tool and you had no idea.

Suno’s terms put that risk on you. Suno does not warrant that your output does not infringe anyone else’s work. If Suno receives a claim over your track all the same, you have to indemnify the company.

Meanwhile the market is moving towards licensed models. Warner Music settled with Suno in November 2025. Since then, Warner artists can opt in, for payment, to the use of their voice, name and compositions. Universal and Sony are still litigating. On 18 September 2026 they filed a second case, which also targets Suno’s newest model. Our page on AI and copyright covers whether AI companies may train on existing music.

Want to know whether your Suno track can go out safely? Call 020 675 88 21 or send a message.

AI music with your distributor and on Spotify

With every release you declare to your distributor that you hold all the rights. For AI music, distributors now go further. TuneCore only distributes music made with AI models trained on fully licensed data. Amuse accepts AI music, but does not deliver it to Meta or YouTube Content ID and rejects songs that imitate a famous artist. The rules differ per distributor and change quickly, so it’s best to reread the terms just before you upload.

AI music on Spotify has its own rules too. Since mid-September 2026 Spotify shows a badge on artist profiles whose identity is AI-generated, known as AI Personas. Those profiles no longer appear in editorial or algorithmic recommendations, unless a listener follows them. The badge is about who is behind the profile. If you release under your own name and use AI as a tool, you won’t get it. Through AI Credits you can state yourself how you used AI.

Deezer goes a step further and detects fully generated tracks. They get a label and are removed from recommendations and editorial playlists. In June 2026 they made up more than half of all new uploads on peak days, but according to Deezer they draw only 1 to 3 per cent of streams. Up to 85 per cent of those streams turned out to be fake in 2025 and were not paid out. Deezer now takes down tracks that are used for streaming fraud or have not been played for six months.

Acquiring a music catalogue with AI works as a publisher

For publishers the risk sits in the catalogue. Since 20 April 2026 BumaStemra has included the catalogues that publishers register in its AI detection, with the aim of not paying out for work that copyright does not protect. A work may then earn less than you calculated when you bought it.

If you acquire a catalogue or sign a songwriter, record which works were made with AI and how they were registered with BumaStemra. That statement belongs in the contract as a warranty, with documentation of the creative process for works where doubt could arise. Also agree what happens to the purchase price or the advance if BumaStemra later rejects a work. Such terms fit into a publishing deal and into the purchase agreement for a catalogue.

Lawyers for AI music and music law

For us, AI music is a new chapter in music law. We put the terms of your AI tool next to those of your distributor and tell you how to register a work with an AI part at BumaStemra. We also look at what your contract with a label or publisher says, or should say, about AI. If a claim comes in on a track, we act for you. For publishers and labels, we review catalogues and draft the warranties that belong in an acquisition.

Want to release AI music and know where you stand? Call 020 675 88 21 or send a message.