Increasingly, yes. Some of it is. Recently several of the largest royalty-free libraries have added AI music generation next to their human catalogues. The problem is not that AI music exists. It is that most catalogues do not tell you which is which, so "royalty-free" no longer implies anything at all about who, or what, made the track.
What has changed in royalty-free music?
Royalty-free used to mean recordings by working composers sold on a subscription. Now some libraries also generate music. Artlist launched an AI music category built on Google's Lyria models, letting users create a track from a text prompt and license it. Other libraries add AI tools that reshape human recordings.
Those two things are worth keeping separate. AI-assisted means a human recording processed by software. An automatic edit to fit your video length, say. AI-generated means no performance happened. Both get filed under the same "royalty-free" heading, and neither is reliably labelled.
How can you tell if a track is AI-generated?
There is no watermark or technical test you can run. Instead, look for a named artist, check that the artist exists outside the platform through a streaming profile, release history or live dates, and check whether the library publishes its position on AI music. If a track fails all three, treat it as unknown.
- Is there a named artist? Not a mood tag or a library-owned "composer collective", a name.
- Does that name exist off the platform? A streaming profile, a back catalogue, gigs, a label, press. Generated tracks are usually credited to the library itself, to a pseudonym with no history, or to nobody.
- Does the library state a position? Some publish exactly where they stand. Soundstripe, for example, says every track in its catalogue is made by human artists and musicians. Silence is not the same as no.
If a track fails all three, you do not know what you have. That is not an accusation. It is just an honest description of what the metadata supports.
When does it matter if music is AI-generated?
For a background bed under a voiceover, it often does not. It matters in three situations: when your audience or client cares who made the music, when you must declare AI-generated material in delivery paperwork, and when the unsettled legal position of AI training data could come back to affect your project.
Your audience or client cares. Documentary, music-adjacent content, anything with a craft audience, and increasingly any brand with a public position on AI. Being asked "who made this music?" and not being able to answer is a bad place to be.
You have a disclosure obligation. Broadcasters, agencies and public-sector clients increasingly require AI-generated material to be declared in delivery paperwork. You cannot declare what your supplier will not tell you.
The provenance could come back. The legal position of models trained on commercial recordings is unsettled and actively litigated. Nobody can tell you today how that resolves. A licence from a named artist for their own recording has none of that ambiguity. The person who made it signed the paperwork.
Where cadential. stands
Our artist agreement rules out licensing or using the music for AI training. Every track we list is human-made music by a named independent artist who has signed an agreement with us, warrants it is not wholly or substantially AI-generated, and takes 80% of every licence fee. You can look them up. They exist.
We are not going to pretend that is a technical advantage. A good generated track can sound fine. It is a structural one. You know who made the music, you can point at them, and the money reaches them. If that is worth something to you or your client, that is the whole pitch.
What we do not claim: we are not a Content ID clearance service, and we cannot stop a platform from flagging something. What we give you is a licence with a number on it that anyone can verify. See how that works on YouTube.
Related guides:
Questions, answered
Is royalty-free music AI-generated?
Some of it is now. Recently several large royalty-free libraries have added AI music generation alongside their human-recorded catalogues, Artlist has launched an AI music generator built on Google’s Lyria models, and other libraries have added AI-assisted audio tools. Most catalogues do not clearly label which tracks are machine-generated, so unless a library states its position, you generally cannot tell from the track page.
How can I tell if a track was made by AI?
Look for a named artist with a verifiable existence outside the library. A release history, a streaming profile, live dates. AI-generated tracks are typically credited to the library, to a generated pseudonym, or to nobody at all. If you cannot find the artist anywhere except the library that sells the track, treat that as unknown rather than confirmed human.
Does it matter if my background music is AI-generated?
For a lot of content, honestly, no. It matters in three situations: when your audience or client cares about authenticity, when you are contractually required to disclose AI-generated material, and when the legal status of the training data could affect you. If none of those apply, use whatever sounds right.
Where can I get royalty-free music that is not AI-generated?
License directly from independent artists rather than from a generated catalogue. On cadential. every track we list is human-made music from a named independent artist who has signed our artist agreement, and artists warrant it is not wholly or substantially AI-generated. The artist agreement also rules out licensing or using the music for AI training.
Sources
- AI Music on Artlist, Artlist Blog
- Artlist Expands Its AI Platform with Professional-Grade AI Music for Video Production, PR Newswire via Yahoo Finance
- Is Soundstripe music generated using AI?, Soundstripe
This guide is general information, not legal advice. For advice about your own project, talk to a lawyer. Licence details on cadential. are set out in the licence terms.