Next Phase for Fair AI

LANDR has announced the next phase of its Fair Trade AI program, its pioneering opt-in music licensing program for independent artists. The company will issue the first payouts from Fair Trade AI to participating artists later this month, in addition to introducing a $1 million advance program that allows musicians to receive upfront payments while continuing to share in future recurring revenue.

With more than 30,000 participating artists and hundreds of thousands of opted-in tracks, Fair Trade AI has evolved into a scalable licensing platform that connects AI developers seeking professionally tagged, fully licensed music with artists who choose to participate under transparent licensing terms.

As AI companies race to build increasingly sophisticated audio models, access to licensed, rights-cleared music has emerged as one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Unlike web-scraped datasets that have fueled growing legal and ethical debates around generative AI, Fair Trade AI is built on three principles: consent, transparency, and participation.

“The conversation around AI and music has focused almost entirely on what creators stand to lose,” said Pascal Pilon, CEO of LANDR. “We’re proving there’s another path, one built on consent and providing recurring revenue for artists. As technology continues to evolve, artists deserve the choice to participate and the opportunity to benefit from the value created.”

Fair Trade AI licenses opted-in music catalogs to AI companies developing next-generation audio technologies, including creative tools, voice technologies and other music AI applications. As demand for licensed training data continues to grow, LANDR believes transparent licensing models will become an increasingly important part of the music industry’s future.

As part of today’s announcement, qualifying artists may receive recoupable upfront advances against future licensing revenue through an initial $1 million funding program. LANDR also announced that artists participating in Fair Trade AI will now receive 25% of net licensing revenue, up from the previous 20%, distributed based on each artist’s contribution to the dataset. As LANDR enters into new licensing agreements, participating artists will earn additional revenue from their music.

“For independent artists, distribution can no longer end when a song reaches streaming platforms,” said Daniel Rowland, VP of Strategy & Partnerships at LANDR. “The future of music distribution is helping creators find new ways to monetize their work, wherever it creates value. Responsibly licensing music for AI is one of those channels, and we’ve built the infrastructure to support it at scale.”

LANDR’s approach combines music distribution, rights verification, metadata management, licensing infrastructure and payment systems into a single operational platform capable of supporting AI licensing at scale. The company has spent more than a decade building AI-powered music technology, beginning with automated mastering in 2014, and now serves a global community of more than 8 million musicians.

“Streaming fundamentally changed how artists earned money from recorded music,” added Pilon. “AI represents another major shift. We believe artists should have more than a front-row seat to that transformation—they should have a way to participate in it on their own terms.”

Fair Trade AI is currently available to eligible LANDR Distribution users. The $1 million advance program will remain open for opt-in through July 20. Artists distributing through other platforms may migrate their catalogs to LANDR using the company’s Release Importer catalog migration tool, making them eligible to participate in Fair Trade AI once their music is onboarded.

Among artists participating in the program is independent musician XO Jane.

“It gives me more time to breathe, more time to be creative,” she said. “My wish is that more AI companies follow LANDR’s example: ask first, and pay the artists who say yes.”