Bandcamp has introduced one of the strictest AI music policies in the industry, banning music and audio that are generated “wholly or in substantial part” by generative AI tools. The move positions the platform as a vocal defender of human-made music at a time when AI content is flooding streaming and download services. The company says it wants fans to be confident that what they discover on Bandcamp is created by real artists, not algorithms.
In a blog post titled “Keeping Bandcamp Human” and a follow-up message shared with users, the company laid out new guidelines that effectively ban heavily AI-generated uploads from the platform. Music and audio that are generated wholly or in substantial part by AI are no longer permitted, and Bandcamp reserves the right to remove any release it suspects relies on generative AI. The platform stops short of banning every possible assistive tool, but makes clear that releases where AI does most of the creative work will not be allowed.
A second pillar of the policy targets AI impersonation. Bandcamp has explicitly prohibited any use of AI tools to mimic or impersonate other artists, vocals or signature styles, framing this as an extension of its existing rules against impersonation and intellectual property infringement. This clause takes aim at AI clones and “deepfake” style imitations that have raised legal and ethical concerns across the music business in the past year.
The company also moved to protect its catalog from being harvested as training data. Under updated acceptable use and moderation language, Bandcamp users are forbidden from scraping the site or using music hosted on the platform to train AI or machine learning models. The policy explicitly says that no one is allowed to train AI systems on Bandcamp content or ingest data from the service for that purpose, drawing a firm boundary at a time when artists are increasingly worried about unlicensed dataset building. To enforce the ban, Bandcamp is leaning on its community. The company is encouraging artists and listeners to flag tracks that appear to be made entirely or heavily with generative AI using the platform’s reporting tools. Support staff will then review suspected violations and can remove music they believe crosses the new threshold, even though the platform has not provided a technical definition of what counts as a “substantial part” generated by AI.
Bandcamp’s stance stands in sharp contrast to many larger streaming platforms that have opted for disclosure labels or partial restrictions rather than outright bans. Commentators have noted that the policy is framed less as a rejection of technology and more as a defense of Bandcamp’s identity as a home for independent musicians and fan-supported artistry. The company’s messaging repeatedly emphasizes the “vibrant community of real people making incredible music” on the platform and says the AI rules are meant to protect that ecosystem.
For producers and labels in electronic music and EDM, the change has immediate implications. Projects built around AI voice clones, model-generated stems or fully synthetic tracks will no longer be welcome on Bandcamp, while human-produced records that use AI in minor, assistive ways may still be acceptable, depending on how heavily those tools factor into the final work. As generative tools become more powerful and more deeply embedded in production workflows, the gray area around what constitutes “substantial part” will likely become a key point of debate between artists and the platform.
Bandcamp has indicated that it will keep updating its AI policy as the technology evolves, but for now the message is clear: the service wants to remain a space where human creativity comes first, and it is willing to remove music and restrict data use to make that happen. For independent artists looking for a platform aligned with a strongly human-centric stance, Bandcamp’s new rules may become a defining feature, even as the wider industry continues to experiment with AI-powered releases.
