Why can a recording created with AI sometimes be distributed, but the song cannot be registered for publishing?

Recording and publishing operate under different rules.

On the recording side, music created using AI tools may be distributed if the tools comply with Believe’s GenAI Music Content Framework and are trained on licensed datasets.

On the publishing side, the requirements are different. Copyright law and Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) require songs to have identifiable human songwriters in order to be registered and monetised.

This means a recording may be distributed, but if the composition was created entirely by AI, based on copyright law, it cannot be registered for publishing or collecting songwriting royalties.