STIM Launches the World’s First AI License for Music
STIM is taking a groundbreaking step in the digital evolution of the music industry by introducing the world’s first collective AI license for music. The license covers a selection of works by creators who have explicitly given their consent and ensure fair compensation when their music is used in AI contexts.
With up to 24 percent of music creators’ revenues at risk of being diluted due to AI developments by 2028, the music industry is facing a pivotal moment. Licensing is both a natural and necessary path to ensure that creators’ rights are respected and their work fairly compensated. By offering clear and transparent licensing solutions, we can shape a future where new technologies are used in a fair way – fully aligned with copyright law.
We are now taking a historic step by launching the world’s first collective AI license for music. The license model is an important step toward a long-term, sustainable structure that protects creators’ income while providing AI and music companies with a legal path forward. With this new license, we can stay at the forefront of technological development – but on the music creators’ terms. Within this framework, licensed companies can train their models on works included in the license. The creators of those works receive royalties during model training, during the use of the AI service, and when the music it generates is used.
“We’ve created a license model that enables us to respond to AI developments without compromising the rights of music creators. It’s about ensuring that anyone who wants to contribute their music to AI contexts is fairly compensated and has full transparency. The license becomes a framework for how copyright and innovation can go hand in hand – with fair terms for creators and clear rules for AI companies,” says Lina Heyman, Interim CEO at Stim.
Pilot Project
To enable a safe and controlled implementation, the license is being launched as a pilot project in partnership with the startups Songfox and Sureel. Only a limited number of works – all from Stim-affiliated rights holders who have explicitly opted in – are included in this first phase.
The license requires the use of independent attribution technology, allowing AI-generated music to be traced back to the human-created works that influenced it. This enables revenue distribution that is both transparent and accurate.
Innovation to Secure Future Revenues
The AI license is part of Stim’s long-term efforts to integrate new technologies in ways that benefit music creators. This work builds on over a century of experience in navigating technological shifts and societal change – challenges that have repeatedly threatened the collective model and the music ecosystem, but have been met with smart licensing solutions to the benefit of music creators.
AI – Common terms and expressions
Generative AI: A specific field within AI where a platform allows the user to generate music, images, video, text, or similar, often using text-based prompts. Generative AI is often distinguished from more traditional problem-solving AI that is not focused on content creation. Input and Output: Input refers to the material used to train an AI model, such as music files, metadata, lyrics, and sheet music. Output is what the model generates as a result, such as a piece of music. AI model: An AI model is a trained system, often based on artificial neural networks, that processes data and generates output based on patterns that the model has learned from analyzing large amounts of data. Common AI models used for generating music include so-called transformer models, as well as others such as RNNs, LSTMs, MusicVAE, and certain GAN or diffusion models. Attribution: A type of technology that can identify which copyright-protected works were used to train an AI model or that influenced the model’s output. Examples of providers of such technology include Musical AI and Sureel.
