AI Song Contest and Musical AI Announce Partnership for the 2025 Edition

The AI Song Contest is set to return in 2025, once again pushing the boundaries of human–AI co-creativity in music. This year, the contest proudly announces a major partnership with Musical AI as its main collaborator, alongside RipX DAW as junior partner. Together, they aim to advance ethical, transparent, and innovative AI-driven music creation.

The AI Song Contest is an international competition that explores the creative potential of human–AI collaboration in songwriting. Teams of musicians, AI experts, and creative innovators work together to experiment with AI as a creative partner, shaping the future of music. This year’s edition will culminate in an Award Show on 16 November at the Melkweg in Amsterdam, a renowned venue known for celebrating creativity and innovation in music in the Netherlands.

A Shared Commitment to Ethical and Transparent AI in Music

Both the AI Song Contest and Musical AI are at the forefront of ensuring that AI-generated music is built on principles of fairness, transparency, and equity. As an international competition showcasing the creative synergy between humans and AI in songwriting, the AI Song Contest has long championed ethical AI use. Participants are required to provide a detailed account of their human-AI collaboration, including ethical considerations. Additionally, the contest has implemented a flagging system for AI tool usage, ensuring transparency and fairness for all creators—a system that has been in place for several years.

This mission aligns with Musical AI’s dedication to creating a fair licensing and attribution platform that empowers musicians, respects rights holders, and fosters creative innovation. As AI-generated music continues to raise complex ethical and legal questions, this collaboration will strengthen efforts to provide clear rights attribution and ethical guidelines for AI-assisted songwriting.

AI Song Sessions & Ethical AI Practices with the Creative Rights Collective

Following last year’s success, AI Song Sessions will return in various cities, offering artists hands-on learning experiences with AI tools while fostering discussions on their impact. These sessions will spark critical conversations about AI’s evolving role in music.

Building on the momentum from last year’s event at Zurich Innovation Park in Switzerland, the AI Song Contest Foundation’s Creative Rights Collective will once again serve as a platform for artists and developers to connect. The event will focus on key topics such as artist rights, monetization in the AI music era, and the importance of ethical AI practices in the industry.

A Global Jury & Call for Collaborations

A distinguished panel of over 20 global experts in AI, music, songwriting, A&R, and AI ethics will judge contest entries, ensuring a fair and well-rounded evaluation process.

As this partnership between Musical AI and the AI Song Contest continues to grow, both organizations are actively seeking new collaborators to join this groundbreaking initiative. Companies, institutions, and individuals interested in partnering can reach out at brandpartnerships@aisongcontest.com.

About Musical AI

Musical AI was founded to address the ethical challenges surrounding AI-generated music. With a deep commitment to fairness, transparency, and responsible AI use, the organization has developed an innovative licensing and attribution platform that supports musicians, protects rights holders, and unlocks new creative possibilities. Through its partnership with the AI Song Contest, Musical AI continues to champion responsible AI practices in music creation.

For more information, visit https://www.aisongcontest.com/ or @aisongconstest on Instagram or LinkedIn, or contact brandpartnerships@aisongcontest.com.

Musical AI and First Rule Join Forces to Create Fully Licensed Generative AI for Music Artists

Musical AI, the AI rights management platform for music and audio, is collaborating with First Rule, a new Nashville-based artist-model platform and VST plugin, to build fully licensed AI agents and models that support music makers. Musical AI will provide licensed training data to First Rule, which will use this data to train musical agents and models to help artists and producers where they currently make music.

Musical AI will provide data, attribution technology (what inputs led to specific outputs), and payment processing to ensure First Rule can prioritize rightsholder consent, credit, and compensation. First Rule will train its proprietary models using this data and ensure they are capable of producing high-calibre results. This lets artists and producers train their own Musical Essence or M.E Models™ on their distinctive style and approach, then license these models to others for use in First Rule’s Co-Writer™, the generative AI-powered VST plugin they’re building that will work in any digital audio workstation (DAW), saving several steps and integrating AI right into the music-making process.

First Rule is the latest in a growing number of AI companies and rightsholders that are turning to Musical AI’s platform to license copyrighted works for AI training purposes. Musical AI has created a secure environment that allows rightsholders to offer select data for training and that allows AI innovators to know what track led to what generated outcome so that they can pay the rightsholders appropriately. This licensing framework has already attracted significant music rightsholders such as Symphonic and Soundstripe, and generative AI companies such as Beatoven.

“This partnership speaks to how generative AI can support artists from the ground up, from training data and models that honor artists’ work to helpful tools and substantial payouts based on usage,” says Matt Adell, COO of Musical AI. “First Rule is a great example of how AI can play a key role in inspiring creativity and unlocking new revenue, all while honoring the needs and wishes of rightsholders.”

“First Rule is committed to building AI that encourages artists and sustains music by ensuring rightsholders have consent, credit, and compensation,” says Rob Baker, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of First Rule. “Our partnership with Musical AI has been vital to realizing this vision and showing how AI can work in harmony with music, with both its creative and business sides.”

About Musical AI

Musical AI (wearemusical.ai) is providing the first real attribution model for generative AI in music. As ardent life-long supporters of the music industry, the Musical AI team saw the AI music ecosystem spiraling into unethical practices. So they fixed it. Musical Al has created an Al Training license management and attribution platform to uplift musicians, respect rightsholders, and unlock creativity for music makers and tech innovators alike.

About First Rule

Based in Nashville and led by seasoned artists and music executives, First Rule (firstrule.ai) is harmonizing AI with the music industry. First Rule lets artists and producers create their own models based on their unique style via its Artist Vault™ platform for use in its groundbreaking agentic AI VST plugin, Co-Writer™. To train its AI, First Rule has created a ClearVoice™ rights clearinghouse where rightsholders can opt into training and reap the monetary benefits thanks to First Rule’s partnership with Musical AI.

AI Rights Management Platform Musical AI Raises $2.1 Million CAD Investment 

Musical AI, the rights management platform for generative AI, has raised initial investment to support music’s first attribution model. The $2.1 mil Canadian investment is led by Build Ventures, one of Canada’s largest VC firms investing in startups. Select angel investors are also contributing. The company is continuing to raise as it looks toward closing a seed round in the first half of 2025. 

“As the opportunity for revenue and need for licensed content become clearer every day,  we’re seeing more Rights Holders and AI Companies  recognize the need for our platform,,” explains Musical AI COO Matt Adell. “Generative AI will need attribution, and we’re the first to master it and provide a secure platform that implements it along with industry accepted revenue sharing.”

“We are excited to invest in this truly innovative and needed solution to a pressing problem,” notes Patrick Keefe, General Partner at Build Ventures. “Musical AI is demonstrating how AI training can happen legally and efficiently, to the financial benefit of all involved.”

With rightsholders like Symphonic Distribution, Kanjian, and others on board, and with AI companies such as Beatoven signing on, Musical AI is doing what many startups are merely talking about. Musical AI’s innovation lies in its unique ability to determine what inputs lead to particular generative AI outputs. It can then parse what percentage of a generated output came from what data source. Rightsholders can monitor, take down, and sunset usage of the works they own. Generative AI companies can access quality licensed data and can use Musical AI’s reports to monitor usage for each generated output.

“If we want AI training to be sustainable and ethical, we need attribution. Musical AI is the only company offering it in the audio space,” says Musical AI CEO Sean Power. “I’m thrilled that discerning investors are backing our efforts to transform how AI is trained.”

About Musical AI 

Musical AI (wearemusical.ai) is providing the first real attribution model for generative AI in music. As ardent life-long supporters of the music industry, the Musical AI team saw the AI music ecosystem spiraling into unethical practices. So they fixed it. Musical Al has created an Al Training license management and attribution platform to uplift musicians, respect rightsholders, and unlock creativity for music makers and tech innovators alike.

Musical AI and Beatoven.ai Team Up to Create First Fully Licensed, Full-Song AI Generator

Groundbreaking partnership will ensure rights holders are compensated for every use of their repertoire, thanks to Musical AI’s attribution technology.

Musical AI, the pioneer in AI training content licensing and attribution, and Beatoven.ai, one of the first Fairly Trained AI music generator, have joined forces to build the music industry’s first fully licensed, rightsholder-compensating, generative AI platform trained on copyrighted music and other audio. Musical AI’s proprietary technology and existing rightsholders catalogs will power a new era in generative music, based on consent and honoring music writers, performers, and rightsholders.

Beatoven.ai will create the world’s first full-song generator that is completely legal and licensed. To do this, it is turning to Musical AI, which will provide data licensing, attribution of generated outputs, and payments to rightsholders. Based on usage by the outputs provided by Musical AI technology, rightsholders will receive an appropriate share of the model’s revenue, much as they do when music is streamed on a commercial service. 

In turn, Musical AI will exclusively offer its enterprise clients this full-song model, allowing more innovators to incorporate this white-label service into their products. This new service, currently under development, will launch in the second half of 2025 and will train on more than 3 million songs, loops, samples, and sounds.

“We are working with the forward-thinking, ethically driven team at Beatoven.ai because they see the value in proving that generative AI can be legal and can compensate original content creators for their work while still thriving as a business,” explains Musical AI CEO Sean Power . “There are no more excuses for not doing things right and well. We’re proving this with this first-ever service.”

“We are excited to partner with the Musical AI team. Matt, Sean and Nico are music industry veterans and we believe with this partnership, we will set the way forward for how business models need to be built in AI with the rightsholders being compensated for the data the models are trained on” says Mansoor Rahimat Khan, founder and CEO of Beatoven.ai. “We have historically been adopting this model in direct partnerships with independent artists and by joining hands with Musical AI we will build a sustainable revenue sharing model using their attribution technology”

About Musical AI

Musical AI (wearemusical.ai) has created the first secure platform for music rights management in AI training. As ardent life-long supporters of the music industry, Musical Al has created an Al Training license management and attribution platform to uplift musicians, respect rights holders, and unlock creativity for music makers and tech innovators alike.

About Beatoven.ai

Beatoven.ai is a Fairly Trained AI music generator for audio visual content creators to compose original music. Users can input text, audio and video prompts and generate original music. The company has served more than 1.5 million content creators globally who have created 6 million background scores for their films, videos, podcasts and games.

Musical.AI Secures Partnership with Kanjian, a Leader in Global License Management Automation.

Musical.AI and Kanjian are partnering to bring Kanjian's large, purpose-dedicated catalog to AI innovators seeking fully licensed training data. This unique catalog features original, human-created music from a diverse range of artists and labels across the globe, where all rights holders have explicitly pre-authorized AI usage. Unlike other catalogs, where additional opt-in from rights holders may be required, Kanjian’s collection is fully cleared for AI applications. This means that tech and AI companies can immediately leverage Kanjian’s catalog for training, benefiting from a streamlined, ethically licensed solution that aligns with industry-leading standards for responsible data use.

Kanjian’s extensive catalog enriches Musical.AI’s platform, adding a diverse range of genres, styles, and uses. This collaboration, supported by Musical.AI’s ongoing agreements with rights holders and production music libraries, further enhances the platform's AI training capabilities.

“We are striving to onboard rights holders like Kanjian who have the global breadth and high-quality catalog that will allow our AI customers to train on music that reflects more of the world’s listening habits and culture,” explains Musical.AI co-founder and COO Matt Adell. "Kanjian represents a key partnership in Asia, and we’re excited to work with their forward-thinking team.”

“We are thrilled to partner with Musical AI, an innovator that shares our vision for a fair and transparent music ecosystem,” says Tinko Georgiev, VP at Kanjian. "At Kanjian, we’ve been actively supporting AI training in music licensing, and this collaboration with Musical AI is a natural extension of the licensing infrastructure we've built over the last decade, reinforcing our commitment to seamless, transparent and efficient monetization between creators, rightsholders, and tech innovators.”

About Musical.AI

Musical AI (wearemusical.ai) has created the first secure platform for music rights management in AI training. As ardent life-long supporters of the music industry, Musical Al has created an Al Training license management and attribution platform to uplift musicians, respect rights holders, and unlock creativity for music makers and tech innovators alike.

About Kanjian

Kanjian (kanjian.com) is a global leader in music licensing automation. With a comprehensive platform covering both traditional and innovative licensing models, Kanjian ensures seamless rights, royalty, and asset management. Trusted by millions of creators and businesses globally, Kanjian bridges the gap between creators, rightsholders, and digital platforms, empowering artists, fostering innovation, and driving digital transformation worldwide.

Musical AI, the music rights management platform for AI, is partnering with Symphonic Distribution, the fastest growing US-based independent digital music services company. Together, they will offer Symphonic’s incredible repertoire from around the world to AI companies looking to train models legally. 

The partnership will allow generative AI models to be trained on Symphonic’s wide range of commercial releases when artists and labels have opted in to the program. Symphonic’s impressive catalog offers genre diversity and high quality for training. Musical AI will help Symphonic artists earn more revenue from their existing music, thanks to its proprietary AI attribution and metered usage technology.  

Thanks to Musical AI, Symphonic artists that opt in will be able to reap the benefits of AI and a new revenue stream while protecting their work. Musical AI’s innovation lies in its unique ability to determine what inputs led to particular generative AI outputs. It can then parse what percentage of a generated output came from what data source. Rightsholders can monitor, take down, and sunset usage of the works they own. Generative AI companies can access quality licensed data and can use Musical AI’s reports to monitor usage for each generated output.
  
“Symphonic’s catalog has clear value to AI companies who need both excellent music by passionate artists and a broad representation of genres and sounds,” says Musical AI co-founder and COO Matt Adell. “We’re thrilled to make them our first major rightsholder partner, as we build a new layer based on attribution and security for training AI to the benefit of all involved.”

“We strive to make our services the most advanced in the business to support our artists. But any new technology needs to work for our artists and clients--not against them. By partnering with Musical AI, we’re unlocking a truly sustainable approach to generative AI that honors our community,” notes Jorge Brea, founder and CEO of Symphonic. “We’re excited to see the musical innovation that results from this partnership.”

About Musical AI 

Musical AI (wearemusical.ai) is taming the Wild West of AI. As ardent life-long supporters of the music industry, the Musical AI team saw the music ecosystem spiraling into unethical practices. So they fixed it.
Musical Al has created an Al Training license management and attribution platform to uplift musicians, respect rights holders, and unlock creativity for music makers and tech innovators alike.

About Symphonic

Symphonic is a leading music technology and services company, offering a proprietary content
management and distribution platform, global royalty collection and split payments, and robust
label services to independent labels, managers, and artists. Founded in 2006 by music producer
Jorge Brea, Symphonic is 100% independent and proud to be “by artists, for artists.”

Headquartered in Tampa, FL, and Nashville, TN, Symphonic also has a significant presence in
Los Angeles, Miami, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, the Dominican
Republic, Spain, Ireland, and Africa.

Symphonic’s current artists and alumni include Imogen Heap, Tokischa, Doechii, Surf Mesa, DJ
Muggs of Cypress Hill, El Alfa, Juan Luis Guerra, Onyx, Pi’erre Bourne, Nick Murphy/Chet Faker, Liquid Stranger, CloZee, among many others. For more information, visit symphonic.com.

Musical AI Tames the Chaos and Ushers in a Sustainable Generative AI Future 

Thanks to groundbreaking technology, this newly launched rights management platform allows attribution and metered licensing of copyrighted works for AI training and generation.

Musical AI (formerly Somms.ai) is unveiling its new rights management platform for AI, serving as a secure go-between for rights holders (labels, publishers, artists) and generative AI companies. The platform knocks down all tech barriers standing in the way of attributing music to the original artists and songwriters and paying rights holders for use of their work by generative AI.

This means there are no more excuses. “We have these incredible advances in AI outputs that require valuable human-created input. There are a few futures ahead of us; one is a future where inputs are seen as interchangeable commodities without distinct value. This is the future currently being promoted by some AI companies,” explains Musical AI co-founder and CEO Sean Power. “In another, arguably better future, we as humans insist that inputs are important, that music, art, ideas, words, and the human labor required to create them have value. If you value this work, then logic dictates that an attribution platform must exist. We are that platform.”

This future requires a middle ground to bridge rights holders’ and generative AI entrepreneurs’ needs. Rights holders need a way to monitor, take down, and sunset usage of the works they own. Generative AI companies need quality licensed data. Musical AI has built this bridge, creating a service that allows rights holders to manage their catalog in a secure platform while retaining control. Generative AI companies can then train their models on this data, using Musical AI’s reports to monitor usage for each generated output.

Musical AI’s innovation lies in its unique ability to determine what inputs led to particular outputs. Musical AI is able to parse what percentage of a generated output came from what data source, a game-changing factor in attribution and remuneration for artists and rights holders. 

“The current problem in the marketplace is that many AI companies agree that the people who own music and IP should be paid. However, rights holders don’t have mechanisms in place to control and monitor usage,” notes Matthew Adell, co-founder and COO. “We’ve created a platform that allows musical assets to exist in a secure environment and that allows us to attribute every single generation. This lets rights holders and AI companies do business fairly and legally.”

Musical AI is built by a team of world-class AI researchers, experienced serial entrepreneurs, and long-standing music and entertainment leaders, all of whom care deeply about the fate of data and art in the AI age. It is guided by advisors at the top of their field, including Vickie Nauman, the music licensing powerhouse behind several breakthrough tech products, and Alastair Croll, one of Canada’s preeminent technology entrepreneurs and authors.  

Musical AI’s focus on ethics and the value of human labor has helped them become one of the first companies to gain certification from generative AI watchdog, Fairly Trained. It has also won over key players in the music industry, though the company hopes to expand to other media soon.  

“We’re excited to innovate rapidly in the music AI space, but we need a partner that allows us to do so while honoring artists. Musical AI is that partner,” says Jorge Brea, CEO of Symphonic, the distribution partner to millions of independent artists. “In the near future, distributors and record labels will be glad they took a proactive approach to best-in-class AI music rights protection and monetization on behalf of the music community.” 

About Musical AI 

Musical AI (wearemusical.ai) is taming the Wild West of AI. As ardent life-long supporters of the music industry, the Musical AI team saw the music ecosystem spiraling into unethical practices. So they fixed it.

With an unshakable goal of ensuring fairness and equity in Al music generation, Musical Al has created an Al generation license management and attribution platform to uplift musicians, respect rights holders, and unlock creativity for music makers and tech innovators alike.