To curb music fraud, Deezer licenses AI music detection tool to Sacem
To curb music fraud, Deezer licenses AI music detection tool to Sacem
The company said that ahead of the Grammy Week, it was conferring with other European collective societies on such deals
To combat music fraud, France-based music streaming platform Deezer has licensed its artificial intelligence (AI) detection technology to royalty agency Sacem, as it pursues wider industry adoption for the tool.
The landmark commercial deal comes as expanding AI capabilities have blurred the lines between human and machine-made songs. It has enabled a new kind of streaming fraud where thousands of AI-generated numbers are uploaded to trigger algorithmic recommendations and siphon off royalties from artists and songwriters.
Deezer claimed to have identified and removed 85 percent of fraudulent AI-generated music streams from its royalty pool in 2025, flagging over 13.4 million tracks.
Daily, it receives 60,000 fully AI-created tracks, which is 39 percent of total daily uploads. This is up from 10 percent in January 2025.
Alexis Lanternier, the CEO of Deezer, said that the company's royalty pool comprised 70 percent of subscriber revenue.
The company explained that the detection tool analyzes audio signals for patterns created by AI music generators, including Suno and Udio. It identifies subtle anomalies inaudible to human ears. The company has trained the system on 94 million songs and filed two patents for the technology in 2024.
However, Swedish royalty society Stim maintains that detection tools alone cannot take care of the issues surrounding musical composition and copyright.
Stim stated, "We believe that copyright and technology can go hand in hand."
In 2025, Stim launched its license, allowing AI companies to legally use copyrighted songs for training models. It believes that mandatory licensing and full transparency for training data could prevent fraud at its source.
Meanwhile, Lanternier said that Deezer was also in talks with other European collective societies on licensing. It plans to engage with organizations in Los Angeles during the Grammy Week.
