LANDR boosts Fair Trade AI licensing programme with $1 million advance scheme and bigger revenue share - MusicTech

LANDR boosts Fair Trade AI licensing programme with $1 million advance scheme and bigger revenue share

The AI licensing programme now offers upfront payments, while increasing artists’ share of licensing revenue from 20% to 25%.

Image: We Are / Getty Images

LANDR has announced the expansion of Fair Trade AI, its opt-in music licensing programme, with a $1 million advance fund for participating artists.

The new advance programme allows musicians to receive upfront payments while continuing to share in future recurring revenue. Fair Trade AI participants will also receive 25% of net licensing revenue, up from the previous 20%, distributed based on each artist’s contribution to the dataset. LANDR will issue the first payouts from Fair Trade AI to participating artists later this month.

“For independent artists, distribution can no longer end when a song reaches streaming platforms,” says Daniel Rowland, VP of Strategy & Partnerships at LANDR. “The future of music distribution is helping creators find new ways to monetise 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.”

Fair Trade AI allows artists to voluntarily license their catalogues to companies developing AI-powered audio technologies, from music creation tools to voice applications. According to LANDR, the programme has grown to include more than 30,000 participating artists and hundreds of thousands of opted-in tracks, creating a sizable pool of fully licensed, professionally tagged music for AI developers.

That pitch arrives at a time when the legality of AI training data remains under intense scrutiny. While many generative AI models have been criticised for relying on web-scraped datasets without permission, LANDR says its programme is built on three core principles: consent, transparency and participation.

“The conversation around AI and music has focused almost entirely on what creators stand to lose,” says LANDR CEO Pascal Pilon. “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 is currently available to eligible LANDR Distribution users, while artists distributing through other platforms can transfer their catalogues to LANDR using the company’s Release Importer tool before opting in. The $1 million advance programme will remain open for opt-in through 20 July.

Independent artist XO Jane, who has joined the initiative, says the programme has already made a difference to her workflow.

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

Learn more at LANDR.

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