The Swedish music industry body IFPI has banned a very popular song on the streaming site Spotify from the country’s music charts because it was created by artificial intelligence, the BBC reports.
The song “I know, you’re not mine” (Jag vet, du är inte min) is currently at the top of Spotify’s Swedish most popular songs playlist. However, it is sung by a virtual singer, and the IFPI has ruled that the song should not appear on the country’s official charts.
The song that caused the uproar is a folk-pop piece that melancholy tells of lost love. It quickly became the most popular song in Sweden so far in 2026, collecting around five million streams in a few weeks, placing it in Spotify’s Swedish Top 50 list.
However, when journalists began to inquire about the identity of the performer Jacub, it turned out that the artist does not have a profile on social networks, no media has written about him and there is no information about planned concerts. Taking a closer look at the issue, investigative journalist Emanuel Karlsten found out that the song was registered by people associated with the Danish music production company Stellar Music. Two of them work in the company’s artificial intelligence department.
The producers, who called themselves Team Jacub,
sent Karlsten a long email in which they insisted that their creative process had been misunderstood.
They emphasized that they were not an anonymous technology company that just “presses a button.” The team of creators of Jacub is said to include both experienced musicians and producers who have invested a lot of time, care, emotions and financial resources in the project. Artificial intelligence in this case was only a tool and an auxiliary instrument for the human-led creative process, and the song’s popularity showed its long-term artistic value.
When asked whether Jacub was a real person, the company’s representatives answered philosophically – it depends on the definition of “real person”. Such an answer did not leave a good impression on the IFPI, and it prevented the song from appearing on the official charts. The head of the organization, Ludwig Werner, pointed out that if a song was created with the help of artificial intelligence, it has no place on the charts.
Sweden positions itself as a “laboratory” for the artificial intelligence economy, but concerns have arisen that this could significantly reduce musicians’ income over the next two years. The music copyright organization STIM last September allowed technology companies to train artificial intelligence models using copyrighted compositions, if they are paid for it.
The ban on AI-created work from entering national charts is stricter than the restrictions imposed by Billboard,
which is considered the authority on the world of music charts. Billboard has had a few AI-created songs on its charts, and the organization notes that the charts reflect listener choice, meaning that songs reach the charts if they meet certain sales, streaming and playback criteria, even if they were not created by a real musician.
However, the platform Bandcamp, for example, has also taken a stricter stance. It has banned music created by AI.
It is expected that AI-created music will be found more and more often in the future, but at least the example of Sweden suggests that for now, real musicians, not technology, are setting the tone.
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