Five lines of code worth asking for

Guest column: Music Ally publishes guest columns which voice the opinions of notable authors that advance specific perspectives on important issues. These are chosen at the Editorial team’s discretion and are not paid-for. You can explore the guest column archive here.

This is a guest column by Benji Rogers, co-founder of AI attribution startup Sureel and founder of PledgeMusic. He believes that rightsholders are in a “rare” moment of leverage – and that they must now demand transparency in the age of generative AI.

I was going to title this piece “Five lines of code worth fighting for,” but having seen lately just how short-term some of the thinking has become for many music and creator rights companies, it seems they won’t even *ask* for what they should be fighting for. 

AI music companies are salivating as it becomes clear that some music rights holders are caving and licensing their artists’ music and compositions without attribution. They are essentially preparing to license blind, giving up the means of seeing exactly how their music is being used once trained on by AI companies. 

They might just get away with it…

Realising how thirsty these rights holders are for their VC cash, AI firms are looking to lock in blind attribution, free licensing deals that would rely on audits (how would that even work?) and lawsuits (wait, what?) to attempt to gain leverage in the deals they are seeking to make. Don’t get me started on the letters and press releases. I can’t even… guard rails???

Here’s the kicker: IF YOU OWN RIGHTS TODAY, THEY NEED YOU! YOU HAVE THE POWER! 

Giving up the prize for a few lines of code…

If artists and their rights holders demanded attribution today, most AI companies would instantly comply. As part of the deal, rights holders would require five lines of code to be added to the AI companies’ model, ensuring the rights holder that if their work is used, they can see as such, and get credited and paid (and get critical data on how it’s being used).

This means AI companies and rights holders would know who to pay! In case you were worried about the AI companies, don’t be— there is no exposure of anything proprietary on their end. Everyone comes to the table eye-to-eye.

The cost of staying in the dark

Blind licensing means artists will lose sight of how their works and catalogues are being used, what their works are being used for, and alarmingly there would be no way to verify what they are being told by the AI companies. Musicians and songwriters will know nothing, and this is exactly what AI companies want. Self-attribution systems are a joke—black boxes (black holes, more like) with no oversight, no verification, and no recourse for creators. 

Giving this up without even asking for it is madness, and the CEOs of these companies can’t believe they are going to get away with it. 

Rights owners don’t even need to use attribution for licensing; just having the data prompt to output, usage patterns, and infringement signals allows them to meaningfully play the long game and protect what they own, while creating new methods of monetization as the technology scales.

Right now, rights holders have the upper hand. AI companies need the music to make their models and business models work. 

Implementing attribution is a technical footnote—it’s five lines of code, not a moonshot (although building it was really hard).

Artists and creators need to be adamant with their labels and publishers here. If their representatives sign away transparency, then they are handing over the keys to a potentially massive future income. 

As AI-generated tracks flood the market, you’ll be left with nothing but regret and shrinking market share-based royalty checks. The window to demand transparency will not be open for long, and this is the moment of maximum leverage for those who own rights—it’s time to use it!