The death of the RIAA will come from an open source music gen model that busts open the economics of music IP. And probably one from the Chinese.
It's been announced that AI-generated music is already starting to top charts [1, 2]. The RIAA moved to shut down Udio [3, 4] and succeeded in getting them to capitulate to onerous demands [5]. They're probably trying to shut down Suno and the rest as we speak.
If a solid music gen model comes out of China, the RIAA will be toast.
Nobody is going to go after every single song published and ask them to show their sources. That's absurd. There just aren't the resources to do that. And generative software will eventually generate those anyway.
Once this begins to proliferate in the open, there won't be any control levers left.
The RIAA couldn't stop RVC models. Once there are more powerful models, it's game over. Every DAW will bake them in and everyone will have a complete working studio on their desktop.
Tencent is working really hard on this [6, 7]. There's no way the tentacles of the RIAA can stop China.
We've already artists switching to concerts and merch as the primary means of revenue generation. Switching to using singles and albums are more promotional of the artists' brands - that's the correct model.
[1] https://www.billboard.com/lists/ai-artists-on-billboard-char...
[2] https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/01/entertainment/xania-monet-bil...
[3] https://www.riaa.com/record-companies-bring-landmark-cases-f...
[4] https://musically.com/2025/09/29/riaa-updates-udio-lawsuit-a...
[5] https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-music-settl...