Orfium Secures Major EU Grant to Pioneer Explainable AI for Music Rights Management
We’re proud to announce our award of a significant grant from the European Commission. This funding will enable Orfium to lead a pioneering research project focused on one of the most pressing challenges in the creative industries: detecting and attributing copyrighted music within AI-generated outputs.
This initiative is part of AIXPERT, a €7.5 million project under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, specifically the “Explainable and Robust AI” initiative. Out of 135 applications, Orfium was part of three consortiums selected to receive this prestigious grant, underscoring its position at the forefront of innovation in AI-powered music rights management.
The Urgent Need: Copyright in the Age of Generative AI Music
The rapid rise of generative AI in music presents both immense opportunities and complex challenges. As AI creates new compositions, a critical question emerges: how can we ensure original human creators are properly attributed and compensated when their work influences AI-generated music? The Gen AI music and audiovisual content market is projected to skyrocket from €3 billion to €64 billion by 2028, according to CISAC, making this research more crucial than ever.
AIXPERT: Building Trustworthy and Transparent AI
The AIXPERT project aims to develop AI technologies that can explain their decision-making processes, fostering transparency and accountability. The consortium comprises a diverse group of leading institutions including Sorbonne University, Athens Research Centre, Amsterdam University Medical Centre, and the University of Barcelona, among others. It is tasked with delivering a comprehensive, human-centric AI framework grounded in FATE principles: Fairness, Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics. This ensures AI systems are transparent, traceable, and inclusive by design.
Haris Papageorgiou, AIXPERT Coordinator, emphasized the project’s broader impact: “This isn’t just about building more powerful systems – it’s about building AI that people can actually trust and understand. AIXPERT with its framework embeds these FATE principles directly into the architecture itself, so transparency and accountability are not afterthoughts – they are the foundation.”
Orfium’s Leadership: Pioneering Explainable AI in Music
Orfium stands as the sole member of the consortium spearheading the application of explainable AI specifically within the music industry. Through this research, Orfium will develop models to:
- Identify copyrighted elements: Pinpoint when and how AI-generated music incorporates components of existing human-made compositions.
- Enable accurate attribution: Facilitate proper credit for original songwriters, composers, and rightsholders.
- Ensure fair compensation: Pave the way for financial benefits for creators in the AI era.
“Coming at a crucial time in the development process of AI, this project is hugely significant for the music industry and fits closely with our mission to apply AI for the good of the sector,” said Rob Wells, CEO of Orfium. “To be selected by the European Commission is a strong validation of Orfium’s position at the forefront of innovation in music rights management.”
Pantelis Vikatos, Senior Director of Research and Innovation at Orfium, added, “There has never been a more important time to support songwriters, composers and rightsholders to be recognised and compensated for their work. We continue to lead the way in developing and applying AI for the benefit of the music industry.”
This three-year project, which officially began on June 1, 2025, is a significant step towards shaping AI-era copyright regulation, licensing, and monetization standards that protect creators in the future. For Orfium, this initiative reinforces its strategic investment in cutting-edge technology and strengthens its position as a global leader in rights and metadata management for the entertainment industry.
This research was funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the AIXPERT project (Grant Agreement No. 101214389).
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