Published: 9/29/2026
The Organization for Recorded Culture and Arts is proposing that streaming services charge a fee for every newly uploaded track, with the goal of making mass-uploading AI music spam and fraudulent content less profitable.
Under the proposal, each streaming service would establish and collect its own fee at the label or distributor contract level. The money would be added to the service’s royalty pool rather than retained as a normal platform charge.
ORCA also suggests lowering or eliminating the fee for creators who pass trust-and-safety checks for legitimate human-made music. However, the organization has not explained how fees charged to distributors would ultimately affect independent artists.
Why it matters: A per-track fee could discourage automated catalog flooding, but it could also make frequent releases more expensive for legitimate independent and AI-assisted artists.
The proposal has not been adopted by Spotify, Apple Music or another major streaming service. It remains an industry discussion rather than an announced platform policy.
Source: AI Musicpreneur — ORCA Wants Streaming Services to Charge a Per-Track Upload Fee