AI Music Terms of Service: The Copyright-Free Trap Most Creators Miss
Copyright-free is not the same as unrestricted The phrase ‘copyright-free’ sounds like a permission slip. It usually is not. A track can sit outside copyright protection and still be wrapped in a contract that limits how it can be used. That is the part most creators miss when they evaluate copyright-free AI music: the absence of copyright does not erase the platform’s rules. Copyright law asks whether a work can be owned as intellectual property. The platform’s terms of service ask something much narrower and more practical: what did you agree not to do after pressing generate? Those are separate questions. Mixing them up is how creators end up using a track in a way the law does not punish, but the contract does. ...