Bandcamp Bans AI Music—But Artists Are Finding a Way to Cash In Anyway

Bandcamp just drew a line in the sand against AI-generated music—and artists are already finding loopholes.

The music platform announced a ban on AI-generated content via a Reddit post, stating:

"We want musicians to keep making music, and for fans to have confidence that the music they find on Bandcamp was created by humans."

The policy prohibits AI tools that "impersonate other artists or styles."

Yet artists like Telisha Jones have exploited the ambiguity. Jones used Suno’s AI to create the R&B track "How Was I Supposed To Know" under the pseudonym Xania Monet, securing a $3M deal with Hallwood Media. Suno, valued at $2.4B after a $250M funding round, faces lawsuits from Sony, Universal, and Warner Music over alleged copyright violations.

The legal landscape remains murky. A judge recently ruled that Anthropic’s AI training on pirated books was illegal but allowed the use of copyrighted data itself.

Bandcamp’s stance contrasts with Spotify and Apple Music, which rely on per-stream royalties. Bandcamp instead takes a cut of artists’ direct sales, fostering a model that prioritizes human creation over algorithmic curation.