Deezer licenses AI music detection tool to French royalty agency Sacem, plans wider rollout

By Leo Marchandon and Jaspreet Singh Jan 29 (Reuters) – Music streaming platform Deezer has licensed its artificial intelligence-detection technology to France's royalty agency Sacem in a landmark commercial deal to combat music fraud, as the company pursues wider industry adoption for the tool. The deal, announced on Thursday, comes as expanding AI capabilities blur the line between human- and machine-made songs, enabling a new type of streaming fraud where bad actors upload thousands of AI-generated numbers designed to trigger algorithmic recommendations and siphon royalties away from artists and songwriters.  France-based Deezer said it successfully identified and removed up to 85% of fraudulent AI-generated music streams from its royalty pool in 2025, flagging over 13.4 million AI tracks. The platform now receives around 60,000 fully AI-created tracks every day, roughly 39% of total daily uploads, up from 10% in January last year. Deezer's royalty pool comprises 70% of subscriber revenue, according to CEO Alexis Lanternier. The detection tool analyzes audio signals for patterns created by AI music generators such as Suno and Udio, identifying subtle anomalies inaudible to human ears. The company has trained the system on 94 million songs and filed two patents for the technology in 2024, it said. However, Swedish royalty society Stim told Reuters that detection tools alone cannot be an answer to issues surrounding musical composition and copyright. "We believe that copyright and technology can go hand in hand," Stim said.  Stim, which in 2025 launched its license that allows AI companies to legally use copyrighted songs for training models, believes mandatory licensing and full transparency for training data would prevent fraud at its source. Deezer is in discussions with other European collective societies regarding licensing and plans to engage with organizations in Los Angeles during Grammy Week, Lanternier said. Sacem did not reply to a Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru and Leo Marchandon in Gdansk; Editing by Jonathan Ananda and Sahal Muhammed)

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