MBW Views is a series of exclusive columns written by notable music industry figures… who have something to say.
The following content comes from Tracy Chan, a former SoundCloud, Twitch and Spotify executive who currently Australian-born artificial intelligence music company Splash.
幾週前，索尼音樂集團(SMG) 正在致函700 名人工智慧開發者和音樂串流服務商，聲明其「選擇退出」其內容，陳為此寫了這封信，以回應幾週前的message.
The letter obtained by MBW also states that any AI developers who want to use SMG content will need explicit permission to do so, and that some of these companies may have infringed Sony Music’s copyrights.
Sony has yet to reveal the names of the 700 companies it sent this letter to, but we now know the name of at least one of them: artificial intelligence music company Splash.
Backed by investors including Amazon Alexa Fund, Khosla Ventures, Bitkraft Ventures, and King River Capital, Splash develops AI-based tools and games for music creation and performance.
The company raised $20 million in Series A funding in 2021.
Splash’s Roblox game “Splash” is powered by artificial intelligence models trained on what the startup calls “a self-created and owned music library” and has more than 400 million total visits, an average of 3 million plays per month and 2.8 million performances.
Tracy Chan joined the company in March from SoundCloud as CEO, overseeing the platform’s music content, licensing and intelligence, and creator strategy.
In the letter below, Chen responds to Sony Music’s letter warning AI companies not to use its content to train AI models, noting that Splash has received Sony Music’s letter but stressing that “we only use artist content with permission.” , will not use SMG to train our models without permission.
Elsewhere in the letter, Chen outlines his and Splash’s views on the ethics of artificial intelligence in the music industry today.
You can read the full text of his letter below.
Dear Jeff and Michael,
I am writing this letter to acknowledge receipt of your letter of May 23, 2024.
By way of background, Splash was an early pioneer in AI-generated music.
We created early voice and instrument models dating back to 2017, we developed and currently have the largest music game on Roblox, with over 425 million game visits and nearly 3 million monthly music visits from our primary Gen Z audience Performance. We develop our games and music products with a set of unwavering, human-centered core principles.
we believe:
- Artists and songwriters should be compensated for their work. It would be unethical for a generative AI company to make money from artists and songwriters without compensation or attribution.
- It is unethical to take money from artists by distributing unapproved AI music to DSPs, who compensate artists through a pro-rata/royalty pool model.
- Human beings matter. What people think matters. Human creativity is important and valuable.
Although the laws governing artificial intelligence and training sets have yet to be settled in the United States, the European Union, Australia, and elsewhere, these beliefs have guided our work in artificial intelligence from the beginning. We only use music that we own or have copyrighted to train our proprietary AI models.
We employ full-time musicians and work with and are paid to a network of over 100 artists and producers to develop our music dataset. We only use artist content with permission and will not use SMG content to train our models without permission.
Although their content is not used to train our AI systems, we have been fortunate to work with BBNo$ and Alaina Castillo, both of whom are on our Roblox meet and greets and are on the Sony Publishing roster.
Sony and Splash share the belief that music and artists have value, and we invite SMGs, artists, rights holders and the industry to work with us to show that we can deliver through our work with artists and songwriters.
Respect,
Tracey Chen
CEO of Splashglobal music business
