Australia bans fully AI-made songs from charts after Madonna cover goes viral

It became one of the most-played tracks on Australian radio last month.

But now, a cover of Madonna’s hit Like a Prayer stands to be banned from official charts, thanks to new rules set by the Australian music industry.

On Tuesday, the Australian Record Industry Association (ARIA), which oversees the country’s official music charts, announced it will now bar tracks that are wholly generated by artificial intelligence.

In a statement to CBC News, ARIA spokesperson Andrew Knowles said the association ruled that the recordings must be "substantially human-made" in order to qualify for the ARIA charts.

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However, tracks where "generative AI has produced the creative elements of a track or a primary part of them" will not be eligible.

"The clearest example of that is a lead vocal or instrument that came from a prompt rather than a person," added Knowles. "Where a human performance sits at the centre of the recording and AI has been used in a minor way on top of it, the recording remains eligible."

ARIA says it will also have the right to remove recordings that have raised concerns about stream or chart manipulation, adding that the tracks must comply with "applicable laws, including those relating to copyright and related rights." Tracks produced by generative AI will also be ineligible for the country’s esteemed ARIA Awards.

"These changes reflect our intent to remain dynamic and promote the human nature of artistry in what is — to say the least — a rapidly developing space," said ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd in a statement.

"The ARIA charts will always remain a transparent measurement of the music Australia consumes, but a chart that rewards unlicensed AI output would undercut the very basis of the recorded music we exist to represent," she added.

The crackdown comes after Brisbane DJ and producer Josh Fawaz’s version of Like a Prayer —which uses AI-generated vocals and drums — spent 16 weeks on ARIA’s Top 20 Australian Singles chart.

The controversial single, which peaked at No. 2 on the chart back in May and still held the fourth-place spot as of Tuesday, has stirred up intense debate and criticism over the use of generative AI.

Music producer Mitch Thomas was among those slamming the artist online , calling Fawaz "the biggest issue in music right now" and alleging that Fawaz's music was "generated entirely with AI." He suggested Fawaz’s music sounded like it was produced using the gen AI platform Suno.

Fawaz snapped back in the comments of Thomas’s video, telling him to "stop having a little sook" — Australian slang for sulking — adding that he only uses AI "as a tool, it’s not that deep."