Deezer Vows in Favor of Human Music, Puts "AI Detector" License up for Sale

The music industry’s defense against "synthetic inflation" reached a critical turning point today as French streaming giant Deezer announced it is officially licensing its proprietary AI-detection technology to third-party organizations, with the French royalty agency Sacem confirmed as the inaugural commercial partner. This shift from internal moderation to an enterprise "as-a-service" model comes as Deezer reveals a staggering data point: fully AI-generated tracks now account for 60,000 uploads per day—roughly 39% of all new music delivered to the platform.

The technical urgency behind this rollout is driven by a "fraud epidemic." Deezer’s 2025 analysis found that up to 85% of streams on fully AI-generated tracks were fraudulent, typically generated by bot networks designed to siphoning royalties away from human creators. By commercializing its detector, Deezer is effectively offering the industry a "turnkey compliance layer." The technology, which boasts a 99.8% accuracy rate in identifying content from prolific models like Suno and Udio, is designed to be integrated at two primary choke points: pre-ingestion (screening uploads before they go live) and post-ingestion (identifying and labeling existing catalog content).

Deezer's Technology Analyzes far Beyond Standard Music Fingerprinting

From a technical standpoint, Deezer’s system moves far deeper than simple metadata flagging or audio fingerprinting. The tool utilizes advanced machine learning models trained on a massive dataset of 94 million songs, focusing on "spectro-temporal analysis"—identifying the subtle, inaudible digital artifacts and pattern repetitions unique to generative AI models. While human ears struggle to distinguish synthetic pop from human-made recordings (a recent study showed 97% of listeners fail a blind test), Deezer’s system looks for "mathematical signatures" in the audio signal that signify a non-human origin.

The partnership with Sacem, which represents over 300,000 creators including David Guetta, allows for a more robust royalty auditing process. By applying Deezer's detection to its massive data analysis streams, Sacem can proactively identify "AI slop" and ensure that payouts are redirected to legitimate rights holders. Furthermore, Deezer’s approach introduces a specific "AI label" for transparency, while simultaneously excluding confirmed 100% synthetic tracks from algorithmic recommendations. This "demote and demonetize" strategy aims to destroy the financial incentive for AI-driven streaming fraud, turning the tide against industrial-scale operations that currently threaten to dilute the global royalty pool by billions of euros by 2028.