AI music removed from Australian charts after Madonna scandal

The Australian Recording Industry Association has decided not to allow songs entirely generated by artificial intelligence into the national charts. The reason was the scandal surrounding the cover of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” which stayed on top of the radio airwaves for several months before it became clear that the author could have used a neural network without informing listeners about it.

What happened

From this week, the ARIA charts — the main benchmark for music popularity in Australia, data from which is published weekly on Apple Music and Spotify — will be closed to tracks created by AI «from start to finish». At the same time, music where the neural network acted only as an auxiliary tool and did not replace the author will still be able to participate — but only if the recording is “largely created by man” and does not look like an attempt to gain auditions.

The wording is vague, and this is no accident: the industry is clearly not ready to draw a clear line between “used AI for mixing” and “generated the entire track,” so it leaves room for manual assessment of each controversial case.

The cover that started everything

The impetus for the decision was the story of DJ Josh Fawaz from Queensland. His cover of Madonna's 1989 hit «Like a Prayer» became the most-played song on Australian radio this summer, peaking at No. 4 on both ARIA charts. The problem is that some producers suspected generative AI in the recording — and, according to them, this was not advertised at all initially.

One of his harshest critics, producer Mitch Thomas, who goes by the moniker Needs No Sleep, called Fawaz «the biggest problem in the music industry today.» The DJ himself responded evasively on Instagram: he admitted that he uses AI “as a tool,” but does not consider it something fundamental, recalling that he releases music long before the advent of neural networks, and he has one goal — to make good music for listeners. Reuters could not immediately reach him for further comment; Warner Records, which represents Madonna's interests, has also not yet responded to the request.

Why this worries not only Australia

ARIA CEO Annabelle Hurd explained the logic of the ban simply: the charts must remain an honest indicator of what people are actually listening to, and not a tool for promoting unlicensed AI content — otherwise the very model on which the recorded music industry is built will be threatened.

There is a broader process behind this. Major labels are now en masse looking for new licensing schemes to protect their catalogs: AI music is becoming more popular, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish it from human music. Musicians and songwriters are simultaneously demanding that the authorities protect their rights: the guitarist and songwriter of the band Hunters & Collectors Mark Seymour has explicitly stated that AI companies are using other people's creative work without permission or payment, and the value of the author's work should not be sacrificed for technology.

Politicians also got involved: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese promised a month earlier that the government would take action to protect the rights of Australian authors to their works. The ARIA decision can be considered the industry's first concrete step towards these promises — albeit with reservations that have yet to be tested in practice.

What's next

The main question is how ARIA will actually distinguish “assisted AI” from a “fully generated track”: no one has universal technical criteria for this yet, and the first high-profile case showed that it is extremely difficult to prove the use of a neural network after the fact. Similar discussions are already underway in the US and Europe, so Australia’s decision may well become a guideline for chart organizations in other countries.

Sources:
reuters.com
aria.com.au
spotify.com/charts

Xrust AI music excluded from Australian charts after Madonna scandal