ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN Align: Partial-AI Works Are Registrable, Fully AI Works Are Not

What changed

On 28 October 2025, ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN each adopted policies to accept registrations of musical compositions partially generated using AI tools, registrable directly with the individual societies. Those works are now included in the full repertories each society licenses. Compositions created entirely using AI tools remain ineligible for registration with any of the three.

The three organizations described the alignment as a response to how their members already work. In the same announcement they stated their position that AI companies ingesting and training on copyrighted works without permission, compensation or credit is not fair use.

"We are clarifying our registration policy to now welcome partially AI-generated musical works, because we believe AI can be a powerful tool for our members, as long as the law puts humans first and technology companies play fair and respect the rights of creators."

— Elizabeth Matthews, CEO, ASCAP

Why the partial/entire line matters

The dividing line is authorship, not tooling. A work with meaningful human composition stays registrable even if AI helped produce it; a work with no human author does not enter the royalty stream at all. For an independent writer using AI for a demo vocal, a string arrangement or a lyric draft, that is a workable rule. For someone releasing a fully generated catalog under their own name, it means no performance royalties from these societies.

What it does not resolve

A registration policy is not a licensing standard. The PROs are accepting works and paying on performances of them; they are not determining whether the model that helped make a track was trained lawfully, and they are not adjudicating credit splits between a human writer and a tool. Those questions sit with courts and, increasingly, with contracts.