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Screen music composers fight for better regulation around AI-generated music - ExBulletin

As artificial intelligence continues to evolve at a breakneck pace, humans who have spent decades working on their craft are struggling with the prospect of being replaced by machines. Ask film composer Josh Hogan what he thinks about the rise of AI-generated music platforms that can create songs on demand, and the response will likely be scathing. "There's no real goal, there's no real hook or trap. "This has nothing to do with the intention that usually comes from human beings who say: 'we mean this'." The Western Australian composer has devoted himself to music for most of his life, performing in bands and orchestras as a drummer and percussionist. Today he is known for his award-winning soundtracks for film and television, created alongside his collaborator Ned Beckley. "I'm still a person who is very interested in music," he says. "And that's really why I hope to get hired, because people know that I'm going to put my heart and soul into creating music." Mr. Hogan wants to make it clear that he supports new tools that can help more people make music. But he doesn't buy AI music generators' arguments that they will democratize music creation by lowering the barrier to entry. "It actually destroys the creative process, it takes away the work of making the thing," he says. "It's a very difficult thing for us as a culture to understand, but we're going to have to ask ourselves: What is the work of making? What is the work of creativity? And is that something that a human being does?" As AI music generators gain millions of new users, the screen music industry is among the creative sectors desperately trying to get ahead. Udio, a New York-based startup, launched its tool in April. It has already attracted nearly two million participants, creating songs in seconds by typing text messages into a box. Udio's Conor Durkan described it as a "radical shift in music making." Co-founder Andrew Sanchez said the tool was proving popular with people without musical skills and professionals who were integrating it into their workflows. "I was with some film composers last weekend and one of the most interesting examples was they said, 'Hey, let's try to generate some music or mood for the moment where a hand emerges from a grave in a dark cemetery,'" he says. "And that gave some really good examples. None of them were exactly what the composer wanted, but it gave them some ideas that they were then able to take and develop throughout the whole thing. "If we look three years from now, or even two years from now, we think people will say, 'This is a powerful technology that enables a whole range of new things, new creations.'" But in the meantime, the world's biggest record labels are currently suing Udio developer Uncharted Labs and another startup, Suno, for alleged copyright infringement. Mr. Sanchez said he could not go into detail about how Udio's model was trained, because of the ongoing litigation, but compared it to human learning. "Great composers and songwriters develop their musical ear and develop their musical abilities by listening to music," he says. "And in the same way, these technologies are able to assimilate abstract ideas about music, the general building blocks, you might say, the fundamental pieces of what constitutes music, which can then be created and assembled into these really cool, innovative ways of making new music." But that's not an argument Kingston Anderson, executive director of the Australian Film Composers Guild, is about to accept. "Without the original music, they can't learn," Anderson says. "They are infringing copyright because they are using that person's music to generate new music. "To say, 'Oh, they're just listening,' what does that mean?" "It's not a person sitting in a room listening to a tape." As this landmark court case unfolds in the United States, bodies representing Australia's creative industries are calling for regulations to protect their original work and livelihoods. In a strongly worded proposal to a Senate committee investigating the impact of AI, the Film Composers Guild warns that there is "a real risk of destroying an entire creative industry." "It's already happening in the advertising world," Anderson says. "The next step is to generate images as well. So I think within two or three years, most advertising, a large portion of advertising, will be generated by AI." The guild is demanding that composers be compensated for any use of their work by AI companies and that permission be sought before its use. Alex Jenkins, director of the WA Data Science Innovation Hub at Curtin University in Western Australia, agrees the law needs to catch up. "We need to find a way to compensate artists and musicians if their music, if their voice, if their skills are used to train an AI model," Jenkins says. The challenge will be to act quickly enough to make a difference. "So by the time the regulations are put in place, by the time the regulators are coming together and working on these issues, the technology has changed again." The Senate committee is expected to report its findings in September. Even within the growing field of AI music creation, there are varying views on the ethics of generative music. Soundraw, a Tokyo-based company, operates a different model from other platforms in that it is not based on text prompts and the output cannot be uploaded to streaming platforms. Founder Tao Romera explains that his AI was trained using content created internally by the company's own team of producers. Mr. Romera believes there is value in an AI tool that makes music production viable for people working on projects with small budgets. But he believes it is unethical for AI companies to scrape copyrighted music. "It feels wrong because you're basically taking all the knowledge and effort that's gone into creating this music by hundreds of thousands of humans and then you're disrupting the industry based on their work." As to the extent to which AI will ultimately replace human creatives, no one seems to know. Alex Jenkins remains doubtful. "To really bring that emotional impact to music is such a human thing," he says. Josh Hogan agrees. "[AI] "It's not necessarily going to support the act of creating great music that the audience will relate to, or in our work, creating great music that connects with characters on a screen, for example, or that tells a story," he says.

Music Industry Turns to AIExBulletin - ExBulletin

A new lawsuit filed by record labels Universal, Sony, and Warner claims their catalogs were stolen by two AI music generators. But there's a catch: It's not clear the courts will be on their side. The music industry is turning to artificial intelligence. A new lawsuit filed by the three biggest record labels -- Universal, Sony and Warner -- claims their catalogs were stolen by two AI music generators. But there's a catch. It's not clear that the courts will side with the record labels. NPR's Bobby Allyn explains why. BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: The two companies are Suno and Udio. Here's how they work. Type a description into a search box and a few seconds later, you get an AI song. So if you type 70s pop into the search, you might get a song called "Prancing Queen." (EXCERPT FROM THE SONG "PRANCING QUEEN") AI GENERATED VOICE #1: (As ABBA, singing) You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 17 years old... ALLYN: It sounds a lot like Swedish pop group ABBA's 1976 hit, "Dancing Queen," doesn't it? (EXCERPT FROM THE SONG "DANCING QUEEN") ABBA: (singing) You're the queen of the dance, young and sweet, only 17 years old... ALLYN: Hmm, artistic inspiration? Mitch Glazier doesn't think so. He says it's theft on a grand scale. He's the CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America. Along with the major labels, he's suing to try to shut down these services. MITCH GLAZIER: This case is a basic copyright case. It's about two companies, Suno and Udio, using music created by other people without permission and without compensation, and profiting from it. ALLYN: The AI companies don't want anyone to be available for an interview. But in their statements, they say that the tools don't memorize and regurgitate music. They say, OK, the music may reflect ideas or themes similar to ABBA, for example, but that's something completely new. These are two parties focusing on different things. The music industry says to focus on the music that's been copied, the input. And the AI companies say to focus on the new thing that the tools are spitting out, the output. RICHARD BUSCH: It's not an obvious case. ALLYN: That's Richard Busch. He's a big name in the copyright world. He's a lawyer who won a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams over their 2013 song "Blurred Lines," for illegally copying Marvin Gaye. He's dedicated his life to going after artists who rip off others. But he thinks AI companies might have a case here. BUSCH: How is that different from a human brain listening to music and then creating something that's not an offense, but is influenced? ALLYN: Busch says both sides of the copyright debate, the in and the out, will be important in resolving this issue. I ask Glazier, from the record industry, to name an AI song that best sums up the case. And he says Jason Derulo, who is known in the R&B world for his so-called tags at the beginning of songs. He makes a mention of his own name - like this. ALLYN: AI tools disallow searches that specifically mention artists' names. But if you type in contemporary R&B, male vocalist, soaring ballads, catchy dance pop, you hear... well... BUSCH: You can hear Jason Derulo's tag in the result. So that's pretty compelling evidence that the company did indeed copy the song without permission. ALLYN: And Glazier, from the record industry, says there are hundreds of other examples. The lawsuit is asking for up to $150,000 per infringing song, so if they win, it could add up quickly. The record industry has a playbook for these kinds of cases. It helped bring down the music file-sharing service Napster. Nearly 25 years later, AI is the new enemy. Busch, the music copyright lawyer, says he thinks that over time, the two sides will reach some sort of settlement before the case goes to trial. GLAZIER: Every time a new technology comes along, that's what happens. Everybody gets upset. Everybody says it's the end of the world, and then everybody says, "Wait a second. There's a way for everybody to make money." ALLYN: Take streaming services like Spotify. The music industry once resisted them. Today, music streaming has propelled music industry profits to new heights. Bobby Allyn, NPR News. (EXCERPT FROM THE SONG "MONEY, MONEY, MONEY") ABBA: (singing) Money, money, money - it must be funny in the world of the rich. Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. For more information, see our website terms of use and permissions at www.npr.org. NPR transcripts are created on a timely basis by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR programming is the audio recording.