Sweden-based music rights society STIM has inked what it claims to be the world’s first licence between a music rights society and an AI company.
According to the org, it has developed a new framework that allows AI companies to train their systems on copyrighted music legally, with royalties flowing back to the original songwriters.
STIM says that, via the license, “compensation flows both through model training and the downstream consumption of AI outputs”.
The organization’s work on this new licensing framework arrives amid an explosion of AI-generated content and ongoing concern in the music industry about AI companies scraping copyrighted musical works without permission to train their models.
In a study published by CISAC in December 2024 measuring the economic impact of AI in the music and audiovisual sectors, it was projected that AI could “cannibalize” 24% of music creators’ revenues by 2028.
How STIM’s license works
According to STIM, the new licence centers on the mandatory use of “neutral, third-party attribution technology.”
STIM claims that in partnership with its ‘preferred attribution provider’ Sureel, each AI output can be traced back to the human-created works that “influenced” it.
The org explains that this “makes revenues auditable in real time” and addresses what it calls “one of the greatest trust gaps in AI music” – the “lack of transparency over what data is used” and how creators are remunerated.
STIM says that its licence is structured as an “open framework”, and will be available to any AI company that meets the organiazation’s criteria “with the aim of embedding fair licensing practices across the sector”.
The first company to operate under the new licence will be Songfox, a Stockholm-based startup that lets fans and creators legally produce covers and AI-generated compositions.
In a statement issued by STIM this week, the org said that, by combining its “collective authority with Songfox’s product innovation and Sureel’s attribution system, Sweden is piloting a model that could once again redraw global music revenue streams”.
By launching its AI licence with two startups and what it calls “a deliberately limited repertoire, STIM claims to be “stress-testing its framework in a controlled setting,” referring to it as “a laboratory for the next phase of the music economy”.
STIM explains: “The aim is to establish a market-based model that secures fair compensation and equal terms of competition while laying the foundations for long-term standards. It is the latest example of how Sweden leverages its small scale and high songwriter density to set global precedents in music rights.”
It adds: “The announcement is a systemic step, unlike private deals, from a rights society of more than 100,000 songwriters, or one percent of Sweden’s population.”
“With the world’s first collective AI licence, we show that it is possible to embrace disruption without undermining human creativity.”
Lina Heyman, STIM
Commenting on the launch of the AI music license, Lina Heyman, Acting CEO of STIM, said: “We are establishing a scalable, democratic model for the industry. With the world’s first collective AI licence, we show that it is possible to embrace disruption without undermining human creativity.
“This is not just a commercial initiative but a blueprint for how rights and innovation policies can align, delivering fair compensation for creators and legal certainty for AI firms.”
Heyman added: “For more than a century, new technologies have tested the structures of music and rights. Each time, collective solutions have carried creators through. AI will be no exception.
“Behind every model lies human works whose value must be respected. By embedding the AI Act’s core principles—transparency, traceability and fair pay — into practice, we protect creators and show that for AI firms, compliance must be a competitive edge,”
Simon Gozzi, STIM’s Head of Business Development & Industry Insight, and the organization’s board representative to Export Music Sweden, said: “History shows that Sweden’s music economy has thrived by engaging with new ideas early, before they are validated by the market.
“Our AI licence continues that tradition, establishing a framework built to last — embedding attribution, transparency and fair compensation into the future infrastructure of the music economy,”Music Business Worldwide
