You generated a track in two minutes with an AI, it fits your video perfectly, and then one question shows up right after the rush: are you allowed to publish it? To monetize it? Could someone come after you for it later?
The phrase “royalty-free music” gets thrown around everywhere until it means everything and nothing. It almost never describes music with no owner. It describes a contract: the one you agree to when you check the terms-of-use box on a generator, usually without reading it.
Here it is in plain English: what French law says about AI-generated creations, what music generator licenses actually cover, the two ways to get commercially usable tracks, and the checklist to run before every single publication. No unexplained jargon, real examples, and official sources so you can verify it yourself.
What “Royalty-Free” Really Means
“Royalty-free” doesn't mean “no copyright.” It means you pay once (or through a subscription) to use a track, without owing a fee every time it gets played.
A royalty is exactly that: a payment owed to the rights holder for every radio spin, every view, every use. Royalty-free music spares you that math, but it absolutely has an owner, a license, and limits spelled out in black and white.
| Status | What it means | What you can do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty-free | One-time payment or subscription, no per-play fee | Use it according to the license, often with no view cap |
| Public domain | Economic rights have expired (70 years after the author's death in France) | Anything, including commercial use |
| Creative Commons BY | Free to use as long as you credit the author | Publish it with precise attribution |
| Creative Commons BY-NC | Non-commercial use only | Personal projects, but no ads and no monetization |
| Library license (stock music services) | Usage rights tied to your active subscription | Publish according to the takedown rules in the contract |
The most common trap fits in one sentence: free doesn't mean commercial. Plenty of music generators offer a free plan whose tracks come out under a non-commercial license. You can listen to them, share them with friends, post them on a personal account that isn't monetized. The moment the video becomes an ad, a paid course, or a monetized channel, you're outside the lines.
Who Owns AI-Generated Music?
Under French law, a piece of music produced entirely by an AI is in principle protected by no copyright at all, because there's no human author behind it.
The French Intellectual Property Code protects “works of the mind”, and case law adds one condition: originality, meaning the imprint of the author's personality. A twelve-word prompt typed into an interface generally isn't enough to establish that imprint. The Conseil supérieur de la propriété littéraire et artistique, which advises the French Ministry of Culture, follows the same logic: the more identifiable and documented the human input, the more protection becomes plausible.
Three very concrete consequences for you:
- You can use your track if the tool's license allows it, but you may not be able to stop another creator from reusing it if they come across it.
- What you actually hold is a contractual right to use, granted by the generator. That's not ownership of the work in the copyright sense, and that distinction changes everything in a dispute.
- Your human contribution does count. Lyrics you wrote, a bass line you replayed, a vocal you re-recorded, a mix you worked on: those elements can be protected in their own right, even if the underlying track was generated.
One last thing not to overlook: the fact that a track was generated doesn't immunize you against infringement. If you explicitly prompt “in the style of” a well-known artist and the result reproduces a recognizable melody, the rights holder of the original melody is still entitled to act. An artist's name and likeness are also protected separately from the music itself.
Two Ways to Get Royalty-Free AI Music
The real difference between these two methods isn't sound quality. It's how clear the license is, and how many subscriptions you have to manage and keep an eye on.
Method 1: Dedicated music generators
Suno, Udio, Riffusion, Mubert: these are the specialized tools, and they do the job very well. The thing to watch is always the same, the dividing line between the free plan and the paid plan.
On most of these services, tracks generated on the free tier come out under a non-commercial license, and only paid subscriptions unlock commercial use. Two questions to ask yourself every time before you commit: does the commercial permission cover tracks created before you subscribed, and what happens to it if you cancel in six months? Some licenses stay in force for titles produced during the subscription period, others don't. It's written down, you just have to go read it.
If you're torn between several tools, the comparison of the best AI music generators breaks down the output and the plans for each one, and the guide to generating music with AI as a beginner covers the basics of writing a music prompt.
Method 2: Traditional royalty-free music libraries
These aren't AI, but they answer the same need and deserve a mention. The YouTube Audio Library and Pixabay Music offer free tracks, with attribution requirements that vary by song. Subscription services like Epidemic Sound, Artlist, or Uppbeat charge between €10 and €25 per month and give you one advantage AI can't offer yet: a license that's been written for years, tested in court, and a fast release process when you get an automated claim on YouTube.
| Method | Ballpark cost | Commercial use | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dedicated generator | €8 to €30/month depending on the plan | Paid plans only, in most cases | Creators already comfortable with a specific tool |
| Traditional music library | €0 to €25/month | Covered by contract, very clearly defined | Client work with zero tolerance for risk |
The Checklist to Run Before Every Publication
Five checks are enough, and they take less than five minutes once you know where to look.
- Which plan was the track generated on? Free or paid, the answer determines everything else. Note the generation date.
- Is commercial use explicitly authorized? Look for the words “commercial use” in the terms. If they're not there, assume it isn't allowed.
- What happens if you cancel? Does the license survive the end of the subscription for tracks you've already made?
- Is the license exclusive? In the vast majority of cases, no. Someone else can generate a very similar track, which matters if you're building a sonic identity for a brand.
- Do you have to disclose that the content is AI-generated? Since August 2, 2026, the European AI Act has imposed transparency obligations on artificially generated content, and several streaming platforms have rolled out their own labeling.
Add one simple habit: keep a record. A dated screenshot of the terms-of-use page, your prompt, the export date, and the invoice number for your subscription are enough to answer in two minutes if an advertiser or a platform asks questions. For what comes next, especially declaring income and the rules specific to streaming platforms, the article on what's legal when you monetize AI music goes deeper.
Platforms Enforce Their Own Rules, Regardless of Your License
Your license governs your relationship with the generator, not with YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, or SACEM, each of which has its own policy and applies it without asking your opinion.
On YouTube, Content ID automatically compares your soundtrack against a database of registered tracks. An AI-generated title can get claimed because it resembles a recording owned by a third party, or because another user registered a track made with the same tool. There is a dispute process, but it takes time and sometimes freezes monetization in the meantime.
On TikTok, the standard music library is reserved for personal accounts: as soon as you represent a brand, you have to pull from the commercial library or bring your own licensed music. Properly licensed AI music solves that problem, as long as you can prove it.
On the streaming side, the cleanup is underway. In September 2025, Spotify announced it had removed 75 million tracks it considered spammy over twelve months, and it's working on labeling AI-generated content at the metadata level. Around the same time, Deezer reported that roughly 28% of the tracks uploaded to its platform daily were entirely AI-generated. Publishing AI music is still possible, but publishing it in bulk with no added value now leads straight to removal.
Finally, SACEM won't register a work without a declared human author. If you want to register a track, you need a real, demonstrable personal contribution: lyrics, composing a melody, performance. Generating a track produced entirely by a machine and registering it exposes you to a false declaration.
The Takeaway
AI music isn't magically free: it's governed by a contract, the one belonging to the tool you use. Check your plan, check for the commercial-use language, keep dated proof, and add a human contribution as soon as the project matters to you.
The rest you learn by doing. For the text side (the lyrics, the music prompt), you can prepare it in the Skilzy chat before moving on to the generator of your choice.
