AI-Created Hit Song Banned

A song which has been streamed millions of times in Sweden has been banned from that country's music charts because it was created by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Called I know, You're Not Mine - Jag vet, du är inte min - it is currently top of the Spotify playlist of Sweden's most popular songs. But the singer is a digital creation and the country's music industry body has blocked the track from its official chart listings.

It's a folk-pop song telling a melancholic story of lost love.

Backed by a finger-picked acoustic guitar melody, it weaves a tale of late-night heartbreak, broken promises and shattered hopes.

"Your steps in the night, I hear them go," sings the artist known as Jacub in a haunting voice.

"We stood in the rain at your gate and ran out and everything went fast. Now I know you are not mine, your promises came to nothing."

It quickly became Sweden's biggest song of 2026 so far, amassing more than five million Spotify streams in a matter of weeks, putting it at the top of the platform's Swedish Top 50.

However, journalists who began investigating Jacub's identity found that the artist had no significant social media profile, media appearances or tour dates.

When investigative journalist Emanuel Karlsten began digging deeper, he found that the song was registered to a group of executives connected to Stellar Music, a music publishing and marketing firm based in Denmark. Two of the individuals work in Stellar's AI department.

The producers – calling themselves Team Jacub – issued a lengthy email to Karlsten, insisting their creative process had been misunderstood.

"We are not an anonymous tech company that just 'pressed a button,'" they wrote.

"The team behind Jacub consists of experienced music creators, songwriters, and producers who have invested a lot of time, care, emotions, and financial resources."

They described AI as a "tool" or an "assisting instrument" within a "human-controlled creative process". To Team Jacub, they said, the five million Spotify streams were proof of the song's "long-term artistic value."

As to whether Jacub was a real person, Team Jacub gave a philosophical response.

"That depends on how you define the term," they said.

- Author: Stuart Hughes, BBC

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