10 things to know before you let a machine write your song
I researched and wrote this for CANBERRAWAX as ASA Regional Coordinator ACT. It’s the quick version of my article ‘AI and Your Songs: Look Before You Leap’, and the research, the writing and the views are all mine. Thanks to Gary Luck for the conversations that helped it along. Share it, quote it, just credit me and CANBERRAWAX. This is general information, not legal advice.
ian paulin
© 2026 ian paulin. All rights reserved.
ARTICLE SUMMARY:
Type a sentence, blink, and an AI app hands you a finished song, so no wonder AI tracks were 44 per cent of all new music delivered to Deezer in April 2026.
No human author means no copyright, so your shiny AI song is anyone’s to copy, sell or stick in an ad for something you wouldn’t be caught dead buying.
The app writes the rules and rewrites them whenever it fancies, so read the terms twice, keep your scrappy drafts, fess up wherever AI had a hand in it and get proper advice if money’s involved.
A Munich court ruled in July 2026 that Suno broke copyright by learning from other people’s songs (Suno may appeal), so if your AI track sounds suspiciously like a hit, it might be one, and guess whose name is on the takedown notice.
Getting an app to sound like a famous singer is borrowing someone else’s reputation without permission, and a quick way to have your track taken down.
Contests, awards and distributors all make you promise the song is yours, and “the app wrote it” is not the answer they’re looking for.
The big labels are suing, the Prime Minister calls it theft, and the federal government has promised laws to stop AI apps helping themselves to Australian creative work without permission.
Of more than 4,200 APRA AMCOS members surveyed, 82 per cent fear AI could stop creators making a living, and every AI track on a playlist is a spot a real, live human doesn’t get.
The Golden Guitars now refuse AI entries and ARIA has banned wholly AI tracks from its charts and awards, so the door is closing fast and contests everywhere will follow.
At our Song Circle the rule is simple: original songs, performed live, no AI, because the safest song is still the one you wrote yourself.
