AI music just got its first performance rights organization.
AIMPRO was announced Saturday, March 28, at the AlgoRhythms conference in Bloomington, Indiana, as the first PRO built specifically for generative AI music. It enters one of the core systems of the music industry: how creators get paid when their work is used.
Performance rights organizations track when music is played publicly and distribute royalties to the people behind it. That includes radio, live venues, television, and other commercial uses. In the U.S., organizations like ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC operate on the assumption that songs have clearly defined human authors.
AI music complicates that.
AIMPRO is designed to work within that complexity. According to its introductory press release, it offers royalty registration, licensing, and distribution for AI-generated works, where authorship may involve prompts, edits, and model output.
The new venture is led in part by Steve Stewart, a music industry executive with a background in rights management, alongside Joe Berman, another veteran with more than 25 years of experience across publishing, licensing, and artist development.
Stewart says the focus is on creators who have largely been left out of the current system.
“We saw a huge hole in the generative AI landscape, where all the attention is on attribution and training,” he said. “No one was paying attention to the AI music creators. We built AIMPRO to serve those creators, and make it possible to earn from their work.”
Membership is free, with AIMPRO taking a 15% fee on collected income. A $9.99 per month Pro tier adds access to a licensing marketplace, where tracks can be discovered and licensed with terms negotiated individually.
