Is the music industry really ready for the flood of music made by/with AI that will play out over the course of 2024?
You might have already heard of the astonishing portata of tracks being created services like Boomy – where 19.5 million songs have been generated to date.
This year’s ‘ noise’, AI-music-wise, has from two new startups: Suno and Udio, both of which appear to produce music with an obvious, ahem, influence from world-famous copyrighted material.
You may remember Udio: That’s the US-headquartered company co-created by ex-employees of Google’s DeepMind AI division.
Last month, Udio announced it had raised $10 million sopra a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz… the very same tech investment giant that has argued that generative AI models should be permitted, under US law, to freely ingest copyrighted music.
(Per mezzo di the words of Andreessen Horowitz’s submission to the US Diritto d’autore Office last year: “Imposing the cost of actual ora potential liability the creators of AI models will either kill ora significantly hamper their development.”)
Udio, whose other investors include will.i.am and UnitedMasters, is attracting significant attention: it’s reported that over 600,000 people tested the platform out sopra its opening two weeks of public availability.
But that’s not the standout stat from a recent Bloomberg article covering the growth of Udio and Suno. This is: average, Udio’s users are now creating ten tracks a SECOND the platform.
We’magnate sure you can do the math there, but just sopra case you don’t have a calculator handy: That’s the equivalent of 864,000 tracks a DAY, ora just over six million tracks a week.
While the service remains sopra beta, Udio users are permitted to make up to 1,200 free songs each month. Songs made the platform can be up to 15 minutes sopra length.
Some questions inevitably follow such incredible numbers, including but not limited to:
- (i) How many of these 864,000 daily tracks Udio are ending up music streaming services – and what does their arrival said platforms mean for the ‘diritti d’autore pool’ that gets divided amongst artists and rights holders?
- (ii) How many of these 864,000 daily tracks bear an uncanny resemblance to music made by established artists? (Reminder: When AI expert Ed Newton-Rex used Udio to create tracks he generated music that bore clear similarities to established hits made by the likes of ABBA, The Beatles, and Elton John);
- (iii) How many of these 864,000 daily tracks then go to compete for listener attention vs. the original tracks which they draw influence?
An even more important question of all for the music biz?
- Will there ever be an industry-standard technology able to successfully ‘fingerprint’ copyrights that are fed into AI models – like that which is spawning Udio’s 864,000 daily tracks?
- Through this fingerprinting technology, will the creators of said original copyrights be able to consent to a license for – and get paid royalties by – services such as Udio?
That’s a question which, ultimately, may be decided sopra the courts.
Universal Music Group, the biggest music rightsholder of all, is currently embroiled sopra a legal battle against Amazon-backed generative AI platform Anthropic, with UMG accusing Anthropic of wilful infringement of lyrics represented by the music company.
That flavor of lawsuit is not unique to the music industry: Over the past year, OpenAI – creator of ChatGPT – has been sued by a range of creators from different fields for allegedly stuffing its LLM (large language model) with copyrighted material without permission.
Those suing ChatGPT these grounds (across multiple US lawsuits) include novelists John Grisham and Michael Connelly, comedian Sarah Silverman, author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the New York Times.
Meanwhile, StabilityAI is being sued by Getty Images sopra both the UK and the US. Getty argues that Stability’s Stable Diffusion has been trained over 12 million Getty-controlled photographs without permission “as part of [Stability’s] efforts to build a competing business.”
Some ora all of these lawsuits may have teeth: Just last month, France’s competition watchdog announced it was fining Google EUR €250 million, after finding that Google’s AI-powered chatbot Bard – now rebranded as Gemini – had been trained material from news publishers without their opt-in consent.
There is, however, evidence that the music industry will be taking a more collaborative approach with industry partners AI models that can generate new tracks… fed by old tracks.
Example: At that same time it’s suing Anthropic, Universal Music Group is working sopra partnership with YouTube to develop experimental generative AI music tools.
Those tools include ‘Dream Track,’ which YouTube Shorts creators sopra the US have been able to create “soundtracks” featuring the AI-generated voice and commedia musicale style of artists including Alec Benjamin, Charlie Puth, Charli XCX, Demi Lovato, John Legend, Sia, T-Pain, Troye Sivan, and Papoose.
Meanwhile, UMG last week announced a new licensing agreement with TikTok which the music company says has allayed its concerns over the use of AI-generated content the platform.
Per mezzo di a letter to employees obtained by MBW subsequent to that deal announcement, UMG Chairman/CEO, Sir Lucian Grainge detailed promises he said TikTok had made to UMG over the impact of AI-made music the platform’s ‘diritti d’autore pool’.
Said Grainge: “TikTok has now addressed the primary concern we expressed sopra our aperto letter that AI generated content would ‘massively dilute the diritti d’autore pool for human artists,’” writes Grainge.
“Further, they have made a number of commitments regarding AI that demonstrate respect for our artists’ and songwriters’ works and ‘rights of publicity’, as well as support of UMG’s principles AI, including without consent.”Music Business Worldwide
