Memorandum: the legal position of RadioMatic under the Dutch Copyright Act, the Dutch Neighbouring Rights Act and the AI Act

Scope. RadioMatic is a service of SmartLabel B.V., established in the Netherlands. This memorandum sets out the legal position of RadioMatic in relation to the copyright and neighbouring-rights claims exercised in the Netherlands by Stichting Buma/Stemra and Stichting Sena, and in relation to the transparency obligations under Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (the AI Act). It is written solely for the information of business customers and does not constitute legal advice in any individual case.

1. Legal framework

The Dutch music rights regime has two halves. Copyright, governed by the Dutch Copyright Act (Auteurswet, Aw, 1912), protects under Article 1 Aw literary, scientific and artistic works, including musical works. Neighbouring rights, governed by the Dutch Neighbouring Rights Act (Wet op de Naburige Rechten, WNR, 1993), protect under Articles 2 and 7 WNR the performances of performing artists and the work of phonogram producers, among others.

Stichting Buma and Stichting Stemra (together: Buma/Stemra) act as collective management organisations for the performing right and the reproduction right of authors respectively. Stichting Sena (Sena) acts as the collective management organisation for the equitable remuneration referred to in Article 7 WNR, on behalf of performing artists and phonogram producers.

The mandate of a collective management organisation extends only to the works and performances of rights holders affiliated with it, whether directly or through reciprocal agreements. Where no rights holder exists for a given piece of material, or where the rights holder is not represented by any management organisation, there is no basis for collection.

2. Copyright position

2.1 Model supplier. For music generation RadioMatic uses a specialised generative AI model supplied by a third party. SmartLabel B.V. therefore operates no models of its own, but acts as the integrator and operator of its supplier’s model within an end-user service.

2.2 Statement by the model supplier. The model supplier states publicly that the model it has trained uses exclusively:

• material that has fallen into the public domain under Article 37(1) Aw (expiry of the term of protection);
• material licensed by the rights holder under terms that expressly permit the training of generative models and the exploitation of derived works;
• material commissioned by the supplier, the copyright in which is settled by contract.

2.3 Verification by SmartLabel B.V. SmartLabel B.V. has verified the legal position of the model as far as the available means allow. That includes studying the model maker’s public documentation on training data and provenance policy, and continuously checking the output itself through audio fingerprinting (comparable to Shazam) to test whether generated tracks can be traced back to existing protected works. SmartLabel B.V. has no direct access to the model maker’s datasets and no contractual relationship with the model maker; the verification rests on what the model maker states publicly and on what the output shows empirically. On the basis of that verification, SmartLabel B.V. accepts the legal position set out below.

2.4 Status of the output. The compositions generated by the model come into being without human creative intervention within the meaning of Article 1 Aw. Under settled case law (including CJEU 16 July 2009, C-5/08, Infopaq, and Dutch Supreme Court 30 May 2008, NJ 2008/556, Endstra tapes) copyright protection requires an own, original character bearing the personal stamp of a human author. Absent that human creative input, no copyright can arise in the output.

2.5 Conclusion on copyright. Given that (i) on the basis of the verified statement of the model supplier the training corpus contains no material in respect of which Buma/Stemra can act on behalf of an affiliated rights holder, and (ii) no new copyright arises in favour of a natural person in the generated output, there is no point of connection for any claim by Buma/Stemra in respect of the communication to the public or reproduction of RadioMatic output. The position is analogous to that of royalty-free production music and public domain catalogues, in respect of which Buma/Stemra has consistently disclaimed its mandate.

3. Neighbouring-rights position

3.1 Scope of Article 7 WNR. The payment obligation under Article 7 WNR attaches to the secondary communication right in respect of phonograms published for commercial purposes on which the performance of a performing artist is fixed. Three cumulative conditions must be met to fall within the scope of Article 7 WNR:

• there is a phonogram within the meaning of Article 1(c) WNR, that is, a fixation of sounds;
• the phonogram has been published on the market for commercial purposes;
• a performance by a performing artist is fixed on the phonogram (Article 1(a) and (b) WNR).

3.2 Application to RadioMatic. RadioMatic content meets none of these conditions:

• no performing artist: the tracks are produced by synthesis; there is no natural person who has given the performance within the meaning of Article 1(a) WNR;
• no phonogram producer: there is no undertaking that has taken the initiative and responsibility for the first fixation within the meaning of Article 1(d) WNR; the output is generative and is not produced as a separate recording;
• no publication for commercial purposes: the tracks are produced and streamed in real time; there is no “placing on the market” as a standalone phonographic product.

3.3 Conclusion on neighbouring rights. In the absence of a performing artist, a phonogram producer and a commercial publication, playing RadioMatic content falls outside the scope of Article 7 WNR. Sena therefore has no basis of mandate against customers of RadioMatic.

4. Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, the AI Act

As of 2 August 2025 the transparency obligations of the AI Act apply to general-purpose AI systems. RadioMatic meets the applicable provisions, in particular Article 50(2) and (4):

• machine-detectable marking of all generated audio output in the metadata, in line with the C2PA standard as it develops under European guidance;
• documented provenance of training data, with proof of licence per source, available for regulatory supervision in accordance with Article 53(1)(d) of the AI Act;
• transparency towards end users that the content is artificially generated, in accordance with Article 50(4) of the AI Act.

The compliance architecture is part of the design of the system and was put in place without retrofitting existing processes.

Disclaimer. This explanation is provided solely for the information of business customers of RadioMatic and was drawn up by SmartLabel B.V. It does not constitute legal advice and no rights can be derived from it. The binding contractual relationship between SmartLabel B.V. and its customers is governed exclusively by the terms and conditions, the individual agreement and its annexes. In the event of any conflict between this memorandum and those documents, the latter prevail.