Beatport will no longer accept tracks generated wholly or mostly by artificial intelligence. It announced the move on 12 August through its own outlet as it expanded its agreement with Beatdapp, and the screening takes place before a release ever reaches the store.
What has happened
According to Beatportal, the store is expanding its relationship with Beatdapp, a music fraud detection company. Until now the two had worked on detecting fraudulent streaming. Beatdapp is now providing technology to distinguish between an AI-generated track and an AI-assisted one. Resident Advisor picked up the story on 17 August.
The policy works in two ways. Tracks identified as AI-generated are held during ingestion and the rights holder is notified directly. AI-assisted music gets in if the finished track is mostly human; those releases are also labelled at ingestion, so that the curation team knows what it is reviewing and featuring.
Matt Gralen, Beatport's chief executive, argued that there is a difference between a tool that supports human creation and a system that replaces it altogether. Andrew Batey, co-founder of Beatdapp, and Jay Ahern, director of strategy at AFEM, also feature in the announcement.
Beatport backs the announcement with its own survey of users, for which it publishes neither sample size nor date: 60% say they would not play AI-generated tracks and, of that 60%, 77% put it down to a preference for supporting human creators; 8% are open to such music and 13% would consider it if there is fair compensation.
'Mostly human', the definition that decides everything
Everything rests on that phrase, and the sources do not say how it is measured. There is no numerical threshold, no detail on what happens to the accounts affected, and nothing on whether the review extends to the catalogue already published.
What is clear is where the filter acts: at ingestion. For a Spanish label or producer distributing to Beatport, the change does not come after release but before it: the track is held back without going live and the notice goes to the rights holder.
That is a different test from Spotify's, which flags the artist's identity rather than how the music was made. Beatport looks at the track.