Deezer Licenses AI Detection Tech to Hungarian Rights Body EJI

Photo Credit: Gabriel Miklós

Deezer has announced it has licensed its AI detection technology to the Hungarian rights body, the Bureau for the Protection of Performers’ Rights (Előadóművészi Jogvédő Iroda Egyesület, EJI).

Deezer tells Digital Music News that the volume of AI uploads it deals with on a daily basis has reached 39% of its daily uploads. That’s an early signal for how platforms might start operationalizing AI governance utilizing Deezer’s detection technology.

With this deal, EJI in Hungary becomes the first Hungarian collective management organization capable of detecting the presence of generative AI in recordings made available to the public. The EJI exclusively protects human performances and does not pay royalties for recordings created with the help of generative AI. Until now, the practical application of this principle was significantly hindered by the difficulty in identifying the presence of AI.

Over 60,000 tracks created with AI involvement arrive on Deezer’s platform daily. Deezer’s technology is designed to detect these tracks, with the cutting-edge tool automatically recognizing and flagging AI-generated recordings. Deezer says this increases transparency for all stakeholders in the music market.

Both the EJI and Deezer agree that AI can have a positive impact on music creation and consumption, but that it must be managed responsibly and carefully to protect the rights and revenues of human musicians.

“We are actively working on solutions that provide artists for artists in the competition against machines, and for this, filtering out recordings made by AI is necessary,” says Pál Tomori, Director of EJI. “However, this is not enough by itself, as the training of AI should only be permitted with the artists’ consent and compensation in the first place.”

“Music is a human creation and rights-holders should be protected,” adds Alexis Lanternier, CEO of Deezer. “At Deezer, this has been our commitment since our founding. Over the last years, we have built the most advanced AI detection technology in the industry and we are making it available to the entire music ecosystem. We are proud that EJI joins us in this movement for transparency and to protect the rights of human creators.”