A thread on Hacker News that is blowing up right now centers on Tidal's new AI music policy — and the timing is no coincidence. Effective today, June 29, 2026, fully AI-generated tracks earn zero dollars on Tidal. Not scaled back. Zero.

Tony Gervino, Tidal's editor-in-chief, is crystal clear about what this is about: royalties should go to people who have actually created something. Not to a model that spat out four minutes of lo-fi beats in two seconds. Starting in mid-July, a visible "AI" badge will also appear on tracks that are fully automatically generated, and users will have the option to filter them out entirely.

Tidal is the first major streaming platform to actually take the money out of the equation for AI music — not just slap a sticker on it.

What's interesting here isn't just what Tidal is doing — it's the contrast with its competitors. Spotify updated its AI policy in September 2025 and landed on an entirely different position: AI music is allowed, as long as it isn't fraud or impersonation. They support industry standards for AI labeling via DDEX and pay royalties as normal. Apple Music launched "Transparency Tags" in March 2026 to let distributors flag AI usage, but the tags are not yet visible to end users in the app.

So we have three major players with three vastly different strategies: Tidal penalizes, Spotify neutralizes, Apple labels (but slowly).

Tidal kicks AI music out of the money system — today - Bilde 1

In the HN thread, there are two things people are particularly arguing about. The first is detection — how is Tidal actually supposed to know what is "100% AI-generated"? AI detection tools are notoriously unreliable, and Tidal itself acknowledges that it will expand the labeling to "substantially AI-generated" content as its methods improve. The second is the principle: is this cultural policy dressed up as royalty reform, or is it actually the most honest solution anyone has tried?

For the AI underground community, this is important to watch because streaming platforms are one of the few places where AI-generated content meets an actual revenue model. How they resolve this sets a precedent — not just for music, but potentially for every creative category where AI is beginning to scale volume in ways that push human-made work out.

A note of caution: this is based on community discussions and Tidal's own published guidelines. How enforcement actually works in practice remains to be seen. But the fact that this is happening today makes it a signal worth keeping on your radar.