Bandcamp becomes the first major music platform to ban AI content

Bandcamp has built its entire brand around serving artists. And, with the artist furor over AI growing every day, it’s no surprise that the company has decided to take a stand against it. In a Reddit post, Bandcamp announced that AI-generated content would not be permitted on the platform and would be subject to removal.

The guidelines leave little room for interpretation. In the post, the company says that “Music and audio that is generated wholly or in substantial part by AI is not permitted on Bandcamp.” It also prohibits using AI tools to impersonate other artists or styles, similar to a rule implemented by Spotify in September. The support team also encourages people to use the site’s reporting tool to flag any music that “appears to be made entirely or with heavy reliance on generative AI.”

In the thread, Bandcamp support also pointed people to the company’s Acceptable Use and Moderation policy page, which includes an explicit ban on scraping content or using audio uploaded to Bandcamp for training AI. It says that users agree, “Not to train any machine learning or AI model using content on our site or otherwise ingest any data or content from Bandcamp’s platform into a machine learning or AI model.”

Other platforms, such as Spotify and Deezer, have taken a much more conservative approach to combating AI-generated content, focusing primarily on imitation or relying on labels rather than bans. iHeartRadio pledged never to play AI-generated music or use AI DJs in late November. But Bandcamp is the first major music platform to outright ban AI-generated content.