In a move to ‘promote the human nature of artistry’,1 the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) amended its guidelines to exclude songs mostly or entirely created by generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) from Australia’s main music charts.
This announcement comes in the wake of controversy around Josh Fawaz’s cover of Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’ – which features AI-generated vocals and drums – reaching number four on two ARIA charts earlier this year.
In July 2026, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the representative organisation for the worldwide recording industry, announced a new set of governance principles in relation to the eligibility of recordings developed with Gen AI for inclusion in official music charts.
ARIA has confirmed its adherence to IFPI’s principles, updating its Code of Practice to only allow recordings developed using Gen AI on the ARIA Charts if the recordings are ‘substantially human made’.
The degree of human creation versus AI involvement is categorised by ARIA as follows:
- AI-generated (not eligible) – Gen AI produced the recording or the “primary part” of its creative elements, such as lead vocals or key instrumental performances.
- AI-assisted (eligible) – Gen AI did ‘something minor’ while humans wrote the song and performed the lead vocal and primary instruments.
- AI in production (eligible) – use of AI in mastering, drum machines, stem separation, reverb or instrument patches that are then played by a human.
ARIA’s commitment to categorising songs as either ‘eligible’ or ‘ineligible’ echoes the challenge currently faced by Courts, legislators and regulatory authorities in the copyright space – when should an AI-generated or AI-assisted work be eligible for copyright protection? In each case, the task of the decision maker is to determine whether there has been sufficient ‘human’ intervention to justify protection and recognition, or whether the true creator of the work is really the AI system itself.
While the ARIA guidelines set out relatively bright lines for determining eligibility, the position is much murkier when it comes to copyright law. In the United States, the Copyright Office has taken the position that prompting a Gen AI system to produce an output does not constitute sufficient human intervention to warrant copyright protection, no matter how sophisticated or labor-intensive the prompting process. Conversely, in China, Courts have recognised copyright in AI-generated images.
In Australia, the government has been workshopping AI-related reforms to copyright laws, but is yet to provide any concrete guidance. Australia’s existing copyright law makes clear that copyright works must originate from a human author and from some ‘independent intellectual effort’ on their part.2
Based on the present landscape, it would theoretically be open to Australian Courts to recognise copyright in AI-generated works in the right case, but this question has yet to be determined. For a deeper dive into copyright challenges posed by Gen AI, see our post here.
Footnotes
1 ARIA, ‘ARIA Charts set eligibility rules for recordings made with AI’ (Web Page, 25 August 2026), accessible at URL https://www.aria.com.au/charts/news/aria-charts-set-eligibility-rules-for-recordings-made-with-ai.
2 IceTV Pty Limited v Nine Network Australia Pty Limited (2009) 239 CLR 458 at [48], [97] and [98].
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