Infinite Licensing in AI Music
For a few years now, in private conversations with various technologists, music rightsholders and fellow data nerds, I’ve been using, and trying to coin, the term “infinite licensing” to describe the concept of real-time AI-powered dynamic licensing of rights in both generative-AI and single-source derivative AI music applications.
No, I am not talking about smart contracts, which are finite preset rules hardcoded in a file that is then minted to a blockchain, but rather the convergence of AI (conceptual/subjective/ecosystem) and blockchain (context/ownership) within the permission layer of applications that can generate an infinite ♾️ combination of licensing deal terms.
Infinite licensing would behave sort of like an oracle within applications to dynamically value and clear rights in machine-to-machine, business-to-business, and consumer-to-machine applications, going beyond the scope of human objectivity, individual experience in negotiation and valuation, and workload capacity in the licensing process.
It removes limiting royalty formulas and most favored nations models and replaces them with highly customized and more commercially accurate representations of value at a given point in time.
I imagine a future where an AI system built on an LLM that has learned from previous licensing deals (and the outcomes and missed opportunities of such deals), ingested airplay and streaming stats, interpreted correlations and trends, while calculating the lost value of undervalued deals, analyzed historical sync data, quantifies hype, ingested sales data, and consumer behavior and sentiment data, etc. would dynamically determine rates and terms for gen-AI and single-source derivative AI music outputs.
Infinite licensing, unlike smart contracts, could factor in variations in types of use, the real commercial value of the source music involved, the perceived cultural value of music creators involved, the market value of the opportunity, and much more.
The blockchain aspect, which has been in development across a variety of projects and startups for over 10 years now, would provide the architecture for transparent and immutable rights management while remuneration could be supported by cryptocurrency.
In 2019, when I presented my lecture “Music 2020: The Next Era of Innovation in the Music Industry” at the California Institute of The Arts and again at Music Biz Conference, I argued that artificial intelligence, blockchain, and cryptocurrency would be among the technologies that will transform the music industry in the 2020’s.
We’re halfway through the 2020’s and I think someone will figure out infinite licensing before 2030.
Dae Bogan to Speak at Trends Brasil Conference
I will be speaking at Trends Brasil Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil @trendsbrasilconference
“ROYALTY MANAGEMENT AROUND THE WORLD”
🗓️ Tuesday, December 2, 2025
⏰ 4pm-4:55pm
🚪 Legal Stage
📍 ExpoRio Cidade Nova
Speakers:
• Dae Bogan (MLC)
• Lucas Zew (BackOffice)
• Gustavo Gonzalez (Abramus Digital, moderator)
The Permission Layer for AI Music: Consent, Attribution, and Getting Artists Paid
The Permission Layer for AI Music: Consent, Attribution, and Getting Artists Paid
🗓️ Wednesday, November 12, 2025
⏰ 9am PT • 11am CT • 12pm ET
How do you scale artist consent across millions of AI-generated tracks? What infrastructure makes attribution and payment actually possible?
AI music is charting on Billboard, signing major label deals, and reshaping production workflows. This panel brings together the architects building the permission layer to explore the frameworks being built right now—from control and consent to metadata and royalty tracking—that will determine how AI music enters advertising, brand campaigns, and commercial licensing.
Essential for brand marketers, creative directors, music supervisors, artists, business affairs teams, and anyone navigating music licensing in the AI era.
Host/Moderator: Abbi Press, Global Lead Business Affairs Manager, Creative at Uber | Founder of The Double Helix
Speakers:
- Daouda Leonard, Co-Founder & CEO, CreateSafe
- Dae Bogan, Head of Third-Party Partnerships, The Mechanical Licensing Collective
- Marc Rucker, Associate Director of Artist & Industry Relations, SoundExchange
- Tushar Apte, Music Producer/Songwriter/Composer, Warner Chappell Music
Register: https://luma.com/500w2bvc
The MLC presents RegFest
The MLC Presents: RegFest
Songwriters, artists, producers, and rightsholders — don’t miss this free online webinar to maximize your streaming royalties and protect your rights! Join award-winning songwriter and artist Cassandra Kubinski and The MLC’s Dae Bogan as they cover how to register your works and claim all your income streams.
🗓️ Monday, November 10th
⏰ 12pm PT • 2pm CT • 3pm ET
Register at https://themlc.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_5WmDEPi0ThaFRZQFiDLC3A
On AI in the Music Industry
I have been writing and talking about the use of AI in the music industry since I developed and taught the course “Music Tech Innovation: Launching New Ventures” at UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music in 2016 when I was an Innovation Fellow at the UCLA Center for Music Innovation.
At the time, there were dozens of startups in accelerators and incubators across the US and around the world building AI tools and ML projects to address various aspects of music creation and data analytics.
I had been running my consultancy agency, Rights Department, where I helped founders navigate the intellectual property implications of their startups as well as develop go-to-market strategies. I was also a mentor to startups through a few accelerator programs and an advisor to a roster of music tech and digital media startups through my ENT Ventures, LLC advisory brand. Later, I would feature some of these companies, including those involved in cryptocurrency, augmented reality, NFTs, and blockchain in my lecture that I gave at universities and the Music Biz Conference titled “Music 2020: The Next Era of Innovation in the Music Industry” (https://daeboganmusic.com/2018/10/12/music-2020-the-next-era-of-innovation-in-the-music-industry/)
In early 2019, I wrote a note titled “Are Founders Of AI Music Services Being Disingenuous When They Tell Human Music Creators Not To Worry Or Are They Just Clueless?” where I asked:
“Recently, we’ve seen AVIA become the first AI to be recognized as a composer represented by the French performing rights society SACEM (I have bigger concern over the implication of recognizing AI as a composer and what that could mean to the legal definition of an author under copyright law) and Endel recently became the first AI to land a major label record deal with Warner Music Group.
If AVIA is a composer and Endel is a recording artist, and they can produce massive volumes of content (WMG is releasing 20 albums by Endel this year alone), what does this mean for the quality and pace of human-created music?” (https://daeboganmusic.com/2019/03/22/are-founders-of-ai-music-services-being-disingenuous-when-they-tell-human-music-creators-not-to-worry-or-are-they-just-clueless/)
This past week, ASCAP, BMI, and SOCAN — the largest public performance organizations in North America that represent millions of music creators — put out a joint statement announcing the acceptance of registrations of partially AI-generated songs and thus clarifying that partially AI-generated songs are eligible to receive public performance royalty payments. (https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/ascap-bmi-and-socan-will-now-accept-registrations-of-partially-ai-generated-musical-works/)
So, the news that AI singer Xania Monet being charted for radio airplay on Billboard means that the songwriter will be able to receive public performance royalties for those plays, in addition to the royalties for the streams on digital music services. (https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/01/entertainment/xania-monet-billboard-ai)
So, that brings me back to the question I asked in 2018: “Are Founders Of AI Music Services Being Disingenuous When They Tell Human Music Creators Not To Worry Or Are They Just Clueless?”
In September this year, I spoke on a panel about AI in the music industry at the Bogotá Music Market in Bogotá, Colombia. I argued that music creators and consumers will have to reconcile our tolerance for creativity and authenticity in the AI-music era and promoted the responsible use of AI as a tool, an innovation in the evolution of the arts no different, fundamentally, from innovations of decades past (enter the printing press, the electronic guitar and synthesizers). (https://www.instagram.com/p/DOgkjVUDT1A)
Some artists will leverage AI as a tool (there are many use cases other than generative AI vocals). Some will resist and possibly fall short. But what is clear to me is that the evolution, which begun as scrappy projects by founders and small teams in the 2010s is now being accelerated by multi-billion dollar investments, regulatory overhauls, and innovative creators who enjoy and do not fear new tools.
And what about consumers? How do consumers feel?
[Podcast] Host Harkos Interviews Dae Bogan on the ‘Music Makin Cents’ Podcast
I sat down with host Harkos of the “Music Makin Cents Podcast” to talk about different ways to make money from your music. Watch the episode here or below.
10 Years Ago Dubset (And I) Wanted Rights-holders To Be Friendlier To DJs…10 Years Later Apple Music Is Making It Possible
Ten years ago, I wrote a piece for Hypebot (posted at the end) announcing the Mix Transparency Report by Dubset (acquired by Pex).
At the time, Dubset, a new startup, wanted to help DJs legally release, distribute, and monetize mixed music (i.e. remixes, mashups, mixes, etc.), and get artists, songwriters, and rights-holders paid. However, there was a ton of resistance amongst rights-holders to what I thought was a great idea. I was biased since I had once managed a roster of DJs who specialized in mash-ups.
The Mix Transparency Report set out a new standard for charting the consumption of mixed music while shinning a light on the commercial opportunities that existed for rights-holders and content creators of derivative works (e.g. DJs, producers, remixers).
(Side Note: Last year, I created the “Beats & Money: A Music Rights & Royalties Crash Course for Beatmakers” webinar for The Mechanical Licensing Collective with support by Chris McMurtry of Pex/RME which you can watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/8ZoPRmJFt-Q.)
Dubset wanted to locate the most popular mixed music in the world, thoroughly analyze it, and share its findings every month. The report would offer full transparency with regards to the “who” and “what” was being listened to (often royalty-free) by millions of music fans a day. Initially, the Dubset report included four charts: Dubset’s 25 Most Sampled Labels, Dubset’s 25 Most Streamed Mixes, Dubset’s 25 Most Sampled Artists, and Dubset’s 25 Most Sampled Tracks.
Recently, Apple announced it is opening its catalog to let users build mix sets by integrating the platform with a number of tools. These tools include Algoriddim’s djay Pro software, hardware platforms AlphaTheta, Serato, inMusic’s Engine DJ, Denon DJ, Numark, and RANE DJ.
(Fun Fact: I was once an advisor to a startup that built a software and hardware for DJs that would be installed between the controller and the sound system. If the controller experienced an outage during a live set, the device would kick in and algorithmically continue the DJ set until the controller was back up and running and the DJ could do his or her thing. Having been both a club promoter and DJ manager in Los Angeles in my early 20’s, I knew it was solution was to a real problem that I’ve witnessed many times, but of course they were “too early.”)
TechCrunch believes the integrations will possibly attract DJs to explore Apple Music’s catalog of over 100 million songs and also give aspiring DJs an opportunity to play around with some of these tools. It’s great to see DSPs engage more meaningfully with DJs. This has been a long time coming, only slowed by rights-holders inability to work with companies like Dubset to figure out the licensing splits.
That Hypebot piece: https://daeboganmusic.com/2015/11/11/hypebot-dubset-releases-inaugural-mix-transparency-report-atlantic-records-david-guetta-most-sampled/
The Socioeconomics of Globalization vs. Glocalization and Why Indie Artists in the Global South Have It Harder
I have been having this very candid conversation about the digital music ecosystem and the socioeconomics (and sociocultural) factors at play in “globalization vs. glocalization” for years now.
Ever since I began exploring the “global south” in 2021, from South America to Southeast Asia to South Africa, and then subsequently moved to Latin America, I’ve observed challenges for local music creators and opportunities for Western music creators.
Artist earnings, in the digital space, are a factor of the socioeconomic health of the region in which artists receive most of their consumption. Two artists from two different countries with the same number of monthly listeners within their own country (glocalization) may not earn the same income due to the differences in the socioeconomic health of their respective countries.
The issue of socioeconomic health is exacerbated by poor copyright compliance and broken or insufficient licensing and royalty collection infrastructure.
Independent artists in lower socioeconomic markets could attempt to look for international collaborations with artists that can introduce them to listeners in more developed markets and they could leverage opportunities to exploit their music in ways that create discovery in new markets (e.g. synch, playlists, etc.). This will aid in exposing the music and eventually earning consumption in other foreign markets (globalization), possibly with better socioeconomic health (or at least higher royalty rates).
Additionally, indie artists should leverage communities like Vampr and BandLab Technologies and other such companies to connect and collaborate with artists, songwriters, and music producers to strive for cross-border appeal and opportunity.
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