The 5 Music Copyright Myths AI Just Made Worse
AI didn't create music copyright confusion. It amplified it.
YouTube processed 2.2 billion copyright claims in 2024. That’s roughly 70 claims per second, running around the clock.
Behind every one of those claims is a creator staring at a notification, trying to figure out: Am I in legal trouble? Should I dispute this? What actually happened?
Most of them will never get a straight answer. The systems designed to “protect” copyright don’t explain copyright. They just enforce policies that have almost nothing to do with the law.
I’ve spent the last six months deep in the weeds of music copyright, building technology that translates similarity detection into actual legal risk. The deeper I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that most of what creators believe about copyright is just... wrong. And AI is making it worse.
Here are the five myths I keep running into.
Myth #1: “Similar” Means “Stolen”
When Content ID flags your video, it’s not saying you committed copyright infringement. It’s saying something in your upload (audio, video, or even a melody) matches something in their database. That’s it.
Content ID doesn’t check whether you have a license. It doesn’t evaluate fair use. It doesn’t ask whether the similar portion is legally “substantial” or whether an average listener would even recognize the similarity.
Courts look at all of that. Platforms look at none of it.
Here’s a situation I see constantly: You license a drum loop from Splice. You use it legally. But 500 other creators also licensed that same loop. Content ID flags all of you against each other, because it can’t tell the difference between “this sounds similar” and “this is infringement.”
You get a claim on content you have every legal right to use. The platform treats you like an infringer. And you’re left wondering if you did something wrong.
You didn’t. The system just can’t tell the difference.
Myth #2: “Under 50% Similarity Is Safe”
I hear this one all the time. “I’m only at 30% similarity, so I should be fine.”
There is no percentage threshold in copyright law. Not 50%. Not 30%. Not 10%.
The “70-30 rule” and “6-second rule” you’ve heard about? Those are platform policies. Internal guidelines that YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram use to manage their systems. They have nothing to do with what would happen in a courtroom.
Courts care about different questions entirely.
Did you copy the “heart” of the work? Two seconds of a hook that everyone recognizes can be more legally significant than two minutes of generic background music. Would an average listener recognize your track as coming from the original? Did you copy something that’s actually protectable, or just common musical elements that nobody owns?
An AI tool can tell you “this is 47% similar.” It cannot tell you whether that 47% includes the one melodic phrase that would get you sued.
Here’s where AI makes this worse: generative music tools can create infinite variations that hover right around similarity thresholds. But “similar enough to avoid detection” is not the same as “legally safe.” You can have zero Content ID claims and massive legal exposure if you copied the wrong four bars.
Myth #3: “If I Can’t Hear It, It’s Not Infringement”
Your ears are not a legal instrument.
In the Blurred Lines case, the jury found infringement even though the songs don’t share a single identical melody line. The similarity was in the “feel,” the groove, the combination of elements that created a recognizable vibe. I’m still not entirely sure I agree with that verdict. A lot of people in the industry don’t. But it’s the precedent we’re working with.
The Dark Horse case went the other direction. A jury initially found that Katy Perry’s song infringed a Christian rap track based on an 8-note repeating pattern. But an appeals court overturned it, ruling the pattern was too common to be copyrightable. Same type of claim, opposite outcome.
What these cases show is that copyright analysis is multidimensional. Courts look at melody, harmony, rhythm, structure, timbre, lyrics. They don’t weight these equally. Melody is generally more protected than rhythm. A match in one dimension can be legally significant even if everything else is completely different.
You might listen to your track and think “this sounds nothing like the original.” But if you inadvertently copied a melodic contour or a harmonic progression, you might have legal exposure you literally can’t hear.
That’s not paranoia. It’s just how the law works. And no detection tool on the market explains which dimensions matter in your specific case.
Myth #4: “AI-Generated Music Is Safe to Use”
This one’s for creators using AI music tools, and it’s more complicated than most people realize.
The training question is still unresolved. In 2024, the major labels sued Suno and Udio for copyright infringement, alleging that training on copyrighted music without permission was itself illegal. Since then, some cases have settled. Warner Music Group is now partnering with Suno. Universal settled with Udio. But Sony’s case against both companies is still active, and no court has definitively ruled on whether training AI on copyrighted music constitutes fair use. The settlements avoided setting precedent. The legal question remains open.
But here’s what most creators don’t realize: Even if AI training is eventually ruled legal, your AI-generated output might not be copyrightable at all.
In January 2025, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that purely AI-generated works cannot receive copyright protection. A federal appeals court affirmed this in March. The logic: copyright exists to protect human creativity, and works generated entirely by AI lack the required human authorship.
What does this mean practically? Music you create by typing a prompt into Suno or Udio and hitting generate? That’s public domain. Anyone can use it, remix it, or monetize it. You have no legal protection.
The only way to own what you create is to add meaningful human involvement. Edit the melodies. Write your own lyrics. Add live instrumentation. Layer your own production. The Copyright Office has said AI-assisted works can qualify for protection if the human contribution is substantial enough, but you’ll need to document your creative process if you ever want to register or defend it.
So when creators assume that because an AI tool exists, the output must be legal to use and theirs to own, that’s not how any of this works.
Pay attention to how these cases develop. Don’t assume “AI-generated” means “copyright-free.” And if you want to actually own your music, make sure you’re doing more than prompting.
Myth #5: “Copyright Detection Tools Know the Law”
This is the myth that made me start building ClearVerse.
Every major detection company (Audible Magic, Pex, YouTube’s Content ID) does the same thing: measure similarity. They compare audio fingerprints, identify matches, and return a number.
That number tells you nothing about legal risk.
This one surprised me when I found it: 65% of Content ID disputes succeed. Most creators don’t dispute because they’re scared of getting a strike. But the majority of claims, when actually challenged, get resolved in the creator’s favor.
Why? Because detection and law are measuring different things.
Detection asks: Does this sound similar?
Law asks: Is this similarity the kind that matters?
A detection tool can’t tell you whether the similar portion is legally “substantial.” It can’t evaluate fair use. It can’t tell you if the element you matched is even copyrightable, or what a court would actually do with your case.
What creators need isn’t just detection. It’s interpretation. Not just “47% similar,” but “here’s what that similarity means given how courts have ruled on cases like this.”
That gap is why I started building what I’m building.
What This All Means
The copyright system wasn’t designed for a world where anyone can generate infinite musical variations with AI, where platforms process billions of claims automatically, where detection technology is completely divorced from legal analysis, and where creators bear all the risk without any tools to assess it.
The result is a system that optimizes for one thing: don’t get the platform sued.
That’s rational from YouTube’s perspective. It’s terrible for creators.
You’re navigating a minefield where claims don’t mean you broke the law, similarity scores don’t predict legal outcomes, platforms have no incentive to explain the difference, and the only people who really understand the nuances charge hundreds of dollars an hour.
What I’m Building
I started ClearVerse because I kept seeing the same pattern: sophisticated detection, zero legal context.
We’re building something different. Technology that scores copyright risk based on how courts actually rule, not just how similar something sounds.
And yes, ClearVerse uses AI. But there’s a difference between AI that generates content without understanding legal risk and AI that helps you understand risk before you create. The same technology that’s flooding the market with potential copyright landmines is also the only thing capable of analyzing legal patterns at scale. It comes down to what you point it at.
We’re using AI to do what humans can’t do fast enough: cross-reference your content against how courts have actually ruled on similarity, weigh which musical elements carry legal weight, and translate that into a risk score you can act on.
The goal is to give creators the intelligence they need to make informed decisions before they upload, not after a claim hits their channel.
We’re opening early access soon. Sign up at clearverse.ai to be first in line.
Want a walkthrough? If you’re a label, agency, or high-volume creator, I’d love to show you what we’re building. Just reply to this email or DM me on LinkedIn.
Or just subscribe. I’ll be writing more about AI, copyright, and creator economics. Next week I’m looking at what the Suno and Udio settlements actually mean for creators, and what’s still unresolved.
One Last Thing
If you’ve gotten this far, you probably have opinions. Maybe you’ve dealt with bogus claims. Maybe you’ve lost revenue to Content ID. Maybe you think I got something wrong.
I want to hear it.
Hit reply and tell me: What’s your biggest copyright frustration right now?
I read every response. Some of the best article ideas come from questions I hadn’t thought to ask.
Talk soon.
— Christian
P.S. — Know a creator dealing with copyright headaches? Send this their way.