Photo: Istock.com/Menno Van Dijk
2025 was the year when artificial intelligence went from being a technology trend to
to become a real force in the music industry. AI music entered the charts, the debates
raged, and more and more TONO members used AI in music creation,
while skepticism increased.
This text is taken from TONO's annual and transparency report for 2025. Read the full report here.
With generative AI, anyone can generate music in seconds. When AI is used as a tool in a human creative process, the result is AI-assisted music – and human creative efforts have copyright, even when AI is involved.
TONO believes that AI-generated music contains our rights when the model is trained on protected works. In November 2025 our German sister society GEMA won over OpenAI, and it was determined that the service has used protected intellectual property in the training and must license it. We expect a similar outcome in GEMA's ongoing case against the AI service SunoThis means that businesses such as cafes and gyms have no benefit in choosing AI music over TONO's repertoire - the license must be paid anyway.
TONO has worked together with sister societies towards the EU related to the AI regulation. On March 10, 2026, the European Parliament decided that the use of copyrighted material in AI systems must be transparent and fair payment to creators., and that EU copyright rules should fully apply to all generative AI services in the EU. The European Commission has now been asked to develop new legislation in this area.
We have also contributed to a Nordic licensing model which gives technology companies a clean path to license music, a concrete expression that innovation and fair remuneration can go hand in hand.
TONO's member survey from February 2026 shows that The use of AI tools in music creation has increased from seven to twelve percent in two years.. At the same time, skepticism has increased: 53 percent see AI as a threat to their own music creation, compared to 38 percent in 2024. TONO also received inquiries from businesses that were considering replacing the TONO license with AI music. So far, this is not a major phenomenon, and background music revenues increased overall in 2025. We remind these businesses that the rights situation around AI music is unclear, and involves a real risk.