IFPI brings AI music eligibility rules to the charts it runs

“When properly licensed and authorised, AI provides exciting opportunities to enhance the creative toolkit,” Oakley said in the announcement.

IFPI-reported table of chart programs and markets listed as covered by the rollout. Source: IFPI.

An industry position becomes a chart rollout

The principles were outlined the previous day by a coalition that included Believe, BMG, Concord, HYBE, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, alongside other independent labels. Their agreement gives the policy industry backing, but it does not itself make every national chart subject to the rules. IFPI says it developed the principles in consultation with member companies as a roadmap for chart compilers, industry bodies and affiliated stakeholders.

The charts already covered include the Official MENA and Southeast Asia charts, the Official South Africa Chart and chart programs in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. IFPI also named prospective national-group implementations including South Korea's Circle Chart, Australia's ARIA, France's SNEP and Germany's Offizielle Deutsche Charts. The distinction matters: the first group is already under IFPI's rollout; the second is where IFPI is working to expand the programme.

A contemporaneous analysis described the label coalition as unusually broad and linked it to a separate proposed metadata initiative. That initiative would distinguish “AI-Generated” from “AI-Assisted” recordings as data moves from distributors to digital music services. The chart principles, however, state their own six conditions; the labels are not a substitute for the eligibility test.

Rights disputes give “authorised” practical weight

The word “authorised” is consequential because the major labels' relationships with AI-music companies have not moved in one direction. The three majors sued Suno and Udio in 2024 in cases alleging mass copyright infringement. A report on the rollout says Universal Music Group later settled with Udio to build a licensed service, Warner Music Group settled with both firms, while Sony Music remained in litigation with both at the time of publication.

Those are claims and legal positions reported in that account, not findings made by the chart rules. But they show why the framework is not merely about stylistic disclosure: a chart compiler may have to assess the status of the service used and the record's rights compliance as well as its stream data.

The policy also depends on disclosure infrastructure that is not yet universal. The industry labelling proposal distinguishes AI-Generated from AI-Assisted music and was put to streaming services as an industry-standard system; contemporaneous reporting said no streaming service had announced adoption at that point. The same report cited more than 90,000 AI-music tracks a day, described as half of new releases. That is a reported estimate, rather than an IFPI measurement, and it does not reveal how many tracks would fail the six conditions.

The next test is how eligibility will be evidenced

IFPI has set out the conditions and the footprint of its rollout, but its public announcement does not describe a threshold for “substantially human made,” a standard of evidence for whether an AI service is authorised, or an audit and appeal process. Nor does it assign those tasks among labels, distributors, platforms and chart compilers.

The next decision is therefore operational. National chart programs can choose whether to adopt the principles, while the organisations that supply recordings and usage data will need a way to carry credible AI-use, rights and manipulation information. The evidence needed to judge the policy's effect is not another statement of principle; it is a published verification process and examples showing how a contested track is assessed.