You generated a track in two minutes with an AI, it fits your video perfectly, and one question shows up right after the excitement fades: 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 and ends up meaning everything and its opposite. It almost never describes music without an owner. It describes a contract: the one you agree to when you check the terms of use on a generator, usually without reading them.
Here, in plain language, is what French law says about AI-generated creations, what music generator licenses actually cover, the three ways to get tracks you can use commercially, and the checklist to run before every publication. No unexplained jargon, concrete examples, and official sources so you can verify things 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 fee paid to the rights holder for every radio play, every view, every use. Royalty-free music spares you that accounting, but it very much 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 limit |
| 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 with precise attribution |
| Creative Commons BY-NC | Non-commercial use only | Personal projects, but no ads and no monetization |
| Publisher license (music libraries) | 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, 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 a 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 contribution, the more plausible protection becomes.
Three very concrete consequences for you:
- You can exploit your track if the tool's license allows it, but you may not be able to stop another creator from reusing it if they stumble across it.
- What you actually hold is a contractual right of use, granted by the generator. That isn't ownership of the work in the copyright sense, and that nuance changes everything in a dispute.
- Your human contribution does count. Lyrics you wrote, a bass line you played, a vocal you re-recorded, a mix you worked on: those elements can be protected in their own right, even if the base was generated.
One last point worth keeping in mind: the fact that a track was generated doesn't shield you from infringement claims. If you explicitly ask for something "in the style of" a well-known artist and the result reproduces a recognizable melody, the rights holder of the original melody can still take action. An artist's name and likeness are also protected independently of the music.
Three ways to get royalty-free AI music
The real difference between these three approaches 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: produce in an environment where the license is framed and explained
Skilzy is a French e-learning platform that combines two things you rarely find together: programs to learn with (more than 15, from image creation to UGC video, plus automation with n8n and prompt writing) and a built-in AI Lab where you use the real tools, credits included.
The upside for music is direct. Instead of taking out three subscriptions to compare three generators, then discovering three different licensing policies, you produce your tracks from a single place. The Compose an AI Hit program covers the technical side (structuring a music prompt, choosing a style, tweaking, exporting) and the awkward side too: which license applies to what you just made, what you're allowed to do with it, and what you need to document before publishing.
On pricing, access starts at €29.90 per month, no commitment. Two certifications registered in France Compétences' Répertoire spécifique are available and eligible for funding: RS7439 on AI-assisted content marketing, and RS6792 on AI applied to sales.
To test before paying, the discovery demo gives you 7 days with no credit card, including 1 image, 1 video, 1 music track and 10 messages. It's not much, but it's enough to generate a first complete track and see whether the result matches what you had in mind.
Method 2: 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 committing: does the commercial permission cover tracks created before you subscribed, and what happens to it if you cancel in six months? Some licenses stay valid 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 pricing of each one, and the guide to generating music with AI as a beginner covers the basics of writing a music prompt.
Method 3: 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 from one track to another. Subscription services like Epidemic Sound, Artlist or Uppbeat charge between €10 and €25 per month and offer something AI doesn't provide yet: a license that's been written for years, tested in court, and a fast clearance process if you get an automated claim on YouTube.
| Method | Indicative cost | Commercial use | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skilzy AI Lab | From €29.90/month | Framed and explained inside the program | Beginners who want to learn while producing |
| Dedicated generator | €8 to €30/month depending on the plan | Limited to paid plans in most cases | Creators already comfortable with a specific tool |
| Traditional music library | €0 to €25/month | Covered by the contract, very well mapped out | Client projects with zero risk tolerance |
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 allowed? 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 produced?
- Is the license exclusive? In the vast majority of cases, no. Someone else could generate a very similar track, which matters if you're building a brand sound identity.
- Do you have to disclose that the content is AI-generated? The European AI Act has imposed transparency obligations on artificially generated content since August 2, 2026, 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 you to account for it. For what comes next, particularly declaring income and the rules specific to streaming platforms, the article on what's legal when you monetize AI music goes further.
Platforms apply 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 track recorded by a third party, or because another user registered a track made with the same tool. There's 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 draw from the commercial library or bring your own licensed music. Properly licensed AI music solves that problem, provided you can prove it.
On the streaming side, the cleanup is underway. Spotify announced in September 2025 that it had removed 75 million tracks it deemed undesirable over twelve months, and it's working on labeling AI-generated content at the metadata level. Deezer said around the same time 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 and registering a title produced entirely by a machine 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 clause, keep dated proof, and add a human contribution as soon as the project matters to you.
The rest you learn by doing. If you want to try music generation before picking a subscription, Skilzy's discovery demo gives you 7 days with no credit card, and a complete track to produce from prompt through to export.
