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ARTICLE · 30 MARCH 2026

AI-Generated Country Song Tops Billboard—So Who Cares That It Cannot Be Copyrighted? Wrong.

Klemchuk
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Earlier this month, the fully AI-generated song "Walk My Walk" took the number one spot on Billboard's "Country Digital Song Sales" chart. The song appears to have been created by Breaking Rust...

United StatesIntellectual Property
Mandi Phillips
Mandi Phillips

Earlier this month, the fully AI-generated song "Walk My Walk" took the number one spot on Billboard's "Country Digital Song Sales" chart. The song appears to have been created by Breaking Rust—not a band in the traditional sense, but more of a front for this and other AI-generated songs. As of this month, Breaking Rust had reached more than 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify.

Can AI-Generated Music Be Copyrighted?

The United States Copyright Office has made clear in recent months that AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted. In other words, while a human penning original music or lyrics can obtain federal copyright registration to protect such works, entering prompts into AI generation software is not protectable and cannot be the basis for a copyright registration. But given the success of "Walk My Walk" on streaming platforms like Spotify and others, who really cares about copyright registration? Wrong.

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