This week, we witnessed a seminal moment in the music industry’s awkward relationship with artificial intelligence technology, as record labels owned by the world’s three largest music giants Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group sued artificial intelligence music developer Suno and Udio allegedly used copyrighted music without authorization to train their artificial intelligence model.
It’s a clear sign – as if any sign is still needed – that the music industry intends to fight tooth and nail against companies seeking to replace human talent with unlicensed AI tools trained on reams of copyrighted human data. right.
In addition to Suno and Udio, many artificial intelligence developers are beginning to realize this. Open artificial intelligencea Microsoft-backed developer Chat GPT The company, which launched in late 2022 and sparked the AI craze seen everywhere today, has been in talks with news organizations including CNN, Fox News and Time Magazine to license its content for AI training purposes.
These talks were held in New York Times Sued OpenAI for allegedly using its articles to train the large language model behind ChartGPT.
April, Financial Times Allow its content to be used to train OpenAI’s models, in a transaction that requires a ChatGPT reference Financial Times Whenever it uses the content of the newspaper when responding to a user’s query.
Now Financial Times reporting Googleof Youtube Talks underway with three music majors – sony, commonand Warner – Licensing their music to train artificial intelligence tools to clone popular artists’ music.
Quoting “three people familiar with the matter.” Financial Times YouTube reportedly wants to offer a one-time cash advance to acquire the rights to a specific artist’s music, with the artist’s permission.
The idea is to encourage more artists to allow their work to be used to create artificial intelligence music tools. YouTube wants “dozens” of artists to participate, two people familiar with the matter said Financial Times.
It’s unclear how receptive artists are to the idea, and the idea of record and publishing companies selling artists’ rights without their permission seems to cross the line, but it’s known that two of the giants – Universal and Warner – —Entered a partnership with YouTube last year to jointly develop artificial intelligence tools with the participation of artists.
(Sony, notably, is not involved in this effort. The company stood out again last month when it sent a letter to about 700 AI developers telling them that Sony would “opt out” of their content by default. For artificial intelligence training.)
Every Financial TimesAccording to reports, YouTube’s initial efforts to collaborate with artists to develop AI tools appear to have fallen short of expectations: only 10 artists agreed to participate in training on the AI tools dream tracka tool designed to bring AI-generated music to YouTube Shorts, a competitor to the video platform Tik Tok.
YouTube is now moving beyond Dream Track and developing new tools – but with the same focus on integrating them into YouTube Shorts, Financial Times the report said.
Record labels are cautiously optimistic about AI technology and are working to find ways to monetize their copyrighted content in the development of AI tools and develop tools to enhance artists’ creative processes.
“Some platforms are using artificial intelligence to undermine creativity and harm artists, songwriters, musicians and copyright holders.”
Artists Rights Alliance
However, artists themselves seem more cautious and less optimistic about artificial intelligence. While a few, like Grimes and 3LAU, have wholeheartedly embraced the technology, many more are concerned about its impact on the future of human creativity.
In April, more than 200 music artists and bands, including Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder and Smokey Robinson, signed a letter asking artificial intelligence developers to “stop using artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe on and Demeaning rights” works of human artists. “
This letter is written by Artists Rights Alliancestated that “artificial intelligence has tremendous potential to enhance human creativity if used responsibly,” but “some platforms are using artificial intelligence to undermine creativity and harm artists, songwriters, musicians, and rights holders. “
YouTube’s new tool is reportedly designed to copy artists’ work, and it’s unclear what category it falls into.
“The industry is trying to figure this out. Technically, the companies own the copyright, but we have to think about how to play it,” an executive at a major music company told the Financial Times on condition of anonymity. “We don’t want to be seen as Luddites.”global music business
