ASCAP will not register a fully AI-generated song, for now

The audio task

A songwriter who used an AI tool somewhere in writing or producing a track wants to know a specific thing before submitting it to ASCAP: will the society register it, and will it be paid the same as a fully human-written song. ASCAP, the US performing rights organisation, answers this directly on its own site rather than leaving members to infer a policy from silence.

What the documents show

A 13 June 2023 press release states the ASCAP Board of Directors adopted six creator-centric AI principles: Human Creators First, Transparency, Consent, Compensation via a free market rather than government-mandated licensing, Credit, and Global Consistency. ASCAP's own ASCAP & AI resource page, as retrieved on 16 September 2026, translates those principles into a registration rule: members 'MAY NOT at this time register fully AI-generated works with ASCAP,' but 'MAY register partially AI-generated works,' meaning works combining AI-generated content with human authorship. The page states ASCAP has filed comments with the US Copyright Office and the White House on AI policy, and points members to the Copyright Office's own guidance for how partial-AI copyrightability is assessed case by case.

Rights status

ASCAP's page is explicit that current US copyright law, not ASCAP itself, sets the underlying rule: a musical work generated entirely by AI, without human authorship, is not eligible for copyright protection, and an AI company cannot be considered an author. ASCAP's registration policy tracks that legal position rather than creating a separate one. ASCAP also states its own advocacy view, that training AI on copyrighted works should require a licence, as a policy position it is pushing for, not as settled law.

What to check before you use it

This is an editorial checklist. Before submitting a track that used any AI tool, a member should check ASCAP's current FAQ language directly, since the page states it will be updated as policy evolves, and should be prepared to disclose the AI tool's role rather than assume disclosure is optional. Anyone comparing ASCAP's approach with the separate, multi-organisation Human Artistry Campaign it supports should check the two are not treated as identical, since ASCAP's registration rules are its own operational policy, and the Campaign is a broader public advocacy coalition.

• Does my track contain human-authored elements sufficient to register as 'partially AI-generated' under ASCAP's current rule?
• Have I disclosed AI tool use in the way ASCAP's registration process now expects?
• Has the US Copyright Office's case-by-case guidance, which ASCAP's policy follows, changed since this page was last retrieved?

ASCAP's resource page draws a clear operational line between AI-assisted and fully AI-generated work, but it is explicit that the line comes from current US law, and that the law's own case-by-case approach may still shift.