Warner Music Group A letter has been sent to technology companies stating that their content can only be used to train artificial intelligence with permission from music companies.
According to Warner’s letter, which can be read in full here, “Parties must obtain WMG’s express permission to use… any creative work owned or controlled by WMG, or to link to or ingest such creative work in connection with the creation of the dataset,” As input to, or training or developing any machine learning or artificial intelligence technology (including through automated means). “
Warner’s move comes after Sony Music Group sent a letter to about 700 AI developers and digital service providers (DSPs) in May, suggesting that major music companies may be taking a common approach to artificial intelligence.
Sony informed the companies that it was officially “opting out” of having its proprietary content used for training artificial intelligence models.
Warner said this includes, but is not limited to, “copying, distributing, publicly performing, ripping, scraping, crawling, mining, recording, altering, extracting or preparing derivative works” of its content.
The letter added that Warner “will take all necessary steps to prevent infringement or other infringement of the creative works and rights of our artists and songwriters.”
In the case of Warner and Sony, the “opt-out” letters were in response to EU regulations that allow “the copying and extraction of legally accessible works” for data mining unless the owners of those works expressly choose not to be used for data mining. Use their content this way.
“We will take all necessary steps to prevent infringement or other infringement of the creative works and rights of our artists and songwriters.”
Warner Music Group
This “opt-out rule” adopted by the EU in 2019 was recently incorporated into the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which is the first comprehensive set of laws in the democratic world to regulate the development and use of artificial intelligence technology.
For the music industry, such opt-out rules are a consolation prize. Many in the industry have been calling for “opt-in” rules, under which the law presumes copyrighted material cannot be used to train artificial intelligence unless the rights holder grants permission.
Such a rule would reduce the burden on rights holders to protect their copyrights and place the burden on AI developers to ensure that they comply with copyright law when training AI models.
“The opt-out system fundamentally undermines copyright protection by shifting the burden of obtaining permission away from users,” national music publishers association (State Drug Administration) said in a filing with the U.S. Copyright Office last year.
However, the opt-out rules only apply to AI companies that work or provide services in the EU. In the United States and other jurisdictions, laws regarding the use of copyrighted material in artificial intelligence training have not yet been passed, and copyright owners can pursue the matter through the courts.
A key development in this regard occurred last month, when record labels owned by the three major music companies— sony music, universal music group and Warner music group– Suing an artificial intelligence music generation platform sun and share It is suspected of infringing its copyright when training artificial intelligence models.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court includes music sheets that show striking similarities between music generated by Suno and Udio and copyrighted works by the following artists: Michael Bray, Mariah Carey, james brown, BB King, Aba and beach boyswait.
The lawsuits are believed to be the first of their kind brought by music labels, although publishers have previously filed copyright lawsuits against AI developers, most notably from music labels. Universal Music Publishing Group, ABKCO and harmony Fighting Artificial Intelligence Developers Anthropic selection.
In statements of defense and submissions to the U.S. Copyright Office, AI companies argue that using copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence should qualify for a “fair use” exemption from copyright law.
Music companies and their legal teams have expressed strong opposition to this, arguing that artificial intelligence developers whose technology copies copyrighted works or whose products compete with music companies on the market cannot obtain “fair use” for using copyrighted works. exemption.
So far, U.S. courts have not ruled on whether training artificial intelligence on copyrighted works constitutes fair use.
“If artists and songwriters want to be part of [AI], they should benefit from their participation. It should also be their right if they want to be protected.
Robert Kinkel, Warner Music Group
Chief Executive Officer, Warner Music Group Robert Kinkel Warner has spoken about the issue of artificial intelligence on multiple occasions, making it clear that Warner sees artificial intelligence technology as an opportunity to improve artists’ creative processes and potentially create new revenue streams, but artists must retain the right to choose whether to use their music in any way. Through artificial intelligence.
“Our position on artificial intelligence is simple. If artists and songwriters want to be involved, they should benefit from participating. If they want to be protected, that should be their right. MBW end of last year.
Now that both Sony and Warner have taken the opportunity to declare that their intellectual property rights prohibit unauthorized training of artificial intelligence under EU law, one question comes to mind: could Universal Music Group be next?global music business
