Australia bans AI-generated music—only 'substantially human made' music is eligible to make the charts

Australia’s recorded music industry is drawing a line: songs wholly made by artificial intelligence will no longer be allowed onto the official charts. The change starts Monday next week, according to the Australian Recording Industry Association, which says the charts should measure music people actually make and consume, not output that was generated end to end by machines.

The timing is not subtle. A version of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” built by an Australian producer using AI-generated vocals and drums, has already spent 16 weeks in Australia’s top 20. It reached number two on ARIA’s top 20 Australian singles chart in May and was still sitting in fourth place on Tuesday. That run has helped turn a messy industry argument into a formal rule.

ARIA says some AI-assisted songs can still qualify, but only if humans wrote the song and performed the lead vocal and primary instruments. The track also has to use legal AI services. And if the music is wholly AI-generated, it will also be ruled out of the ARIA awards.

Chief executive Annabelle Herd framed the move as a defense of human artistry in a space that is changing quickly. The association says a chart that rewards unlicensed AI output would undermine the point of the recorded-music system itself. The concern is not just about charts, either: ARIA also pointed to music appearing on streaming services that seems to have been made with AI tools trained on artists’ work without permission.

Australia’s rules line up with principles released in July by the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which says chart-eligible tracks must be “substantially human made.” That phrasing does a lot of work. It leaves room for tools, but not for a shortcut that turns the artist into a bystander.