Believe and TuneCore mandate artist consent for AI training

Believe and its distribution subsidiary TuneCore will not feed music to AI company Suno without giving artists a clear choice to opt in. This policy follows a new licensing agreement announced on September 8, which adds to Suno's existing deals with Warner Music Group and BMG.

Denis Ladegaillerie, founder and CEO of Believe, stated the position unequivocally. "The artist must consent first, period," he told Music Business Worldwide. Before any music from Believe or TuneCore is uploaded to an AI model's training data, artists must explicitly agree.

A Two-Layer Consent Process

Ladegaillerie explained the company employs a dual-stage consent process for its artists. The first layer is a general opt-in mechanism where artists indicate if they want their music to be considered for AI-type programs at all. If an artist opts in at this stage, they are then presented with specific opportunities from partners like Spotify, YouTube, or Suno. They can opt out of any individual partnership.

For the Suno deal, Believe will contact all artists who gave the initial opt-in. The company will explain the partnership and ask if they wish to participate or opt out. If an artist chooses not to participate, their music will be expressly excluded from training Suno's new V6 models. It will also not feed any subsequent outputs generated by those models.

Principles and Past Policies

This approach is part of Believe's long-held 'responsible AI framework,' which rests on four principles: consent, control, compensation, and transparency. Ladegaillerie called these the "non-negotiable drivers" of the Suno partnership. He acknowledged high artist sensitivity over AI and stated there is no compromise on consent.

The new deal with Suno might seem surprising given Believe's policy from April of this year. At that time, the company said it would block distribution of any track it detected as being created with Suno models trained on unlicensed content. However, under the new agreement, that policy remains in effect for Suno's earlier models.

Music from Suno's new V6 models, which the company says were trained from scratch on licensed content, is eligible for distribution through Believe and TuneCore. Tracks generated by Suno's earlier models remain blocked. Ladegaillerie said the standard is straightforward: protected material used to train a new model must be licensed. He confirmed Suno's V6 model meets this standard.

Guardrails and Revenue Outlook

Believe has been encouraged by guardrails Suno has committed to recently. These include audio fingerprinting, watermarking tracks, and imposing monthly caps on the number of songs subscribers can download. The company is also reassured by Suno's decision to retire all previous models after launching V6. Ladegaillerie noted a "fundamental change" in Suno's understanding that it needs to create value for users, the music ecosystem, and artists.

Financially, Ladegaillerie does not forecast a vast reshaping of the music business from generative AI. He reiterated a past stance, calling AI a "marginal revenue opportunity, and a marginal revenue threat" for the industry. He expects AI revenues for Believe next year to remain a small share of total turnover, not becoming a substantial proportion of overall digital revenues.

The precise details of Suno's royalty payout model remain unclear, though a revenue-share with licensors is suggested. Payments may occur on two fronts: for music licensed as training data (inputs) and for music produced by the licensed models (outputs). Outputs from V6 could potentially be analyzed to determine the percentage derived from each copyright holder's music, creating a framework for distributions.

While Suno has partnerships with Believe, BMG, and Warner for its V6 model, other major music companies have not licensed the service. Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group, the two biggest non-licensors, are in active litigation against Suno, alleging mass copyright infringement in the training of its pre-V6 models. In announcing the partnership, Ladegaillerie struck an optimistic note, saying it unlocks powerful tools and gives artists a meaningful choice over participation and value sharing.