In January, artificial intelligence powerhouse OpenAI announced a tool that could save the world—or at least preserve the sanity of professors and teachers—by detecting whether a piece of content had been created using generative AI tools like its own ChatGPT. Half a year later, that tool is dead, killed because it couldn’t do what it was designed to do.
Source: OpenAI Quietly Shuts Down Its AI Detection Tool – Decrypt
Over the past 25 years or so, it has become increasingly common for big-budget media productions to create digital doubles of at least some performers’ face and body. The digital doubles seen in today’s media productions still rely on human performers and special effects artists. Here’s how the technology works—and how AI is shaking up the established process.
Source: Can AI Replace Actors? Here’s How Digital Double Tech Works
Songwriter organizations are urging congressional action on Mechanical Licensing Collective ‘black box’ royalties. Among those who appeared before a House subcommittee were MLC CEO Kris Ahrend, and predictably, covered topics included the “black box” unmatched royalties held by the MMA-created MLC. Beforehand, the MLC had refused to disclose the precise amount of undistributed creator compensation in its possession, with reports and documents suggesting that the figure could be approaching a cool $1 billion.
Source: Songwriter Groups Urge Lawmaker Action on MLC ‘Black Box’
The company’s long reluctance to raise prices presumably reflected a deep reluctance to lose any market share or ARPU, even as its competitors raised their prices and the industry increased pressure on the company to do so. Surveys have long shown that consumers are willing to accept a price hike for streaming, given the low streaming royalties that musicians and especially songwriters receive for the use of their work.
If you want to know what investors think about the Hollywood strikes and the media sector right now, take a look at stock prices. The media business is hurting and the strikes, mandated by actors’ union SAG-AFTRA and writers’ union WGA, are making things worse. Despite criticisms from Hollywood leaders about poor timing of the strikes, some Wall Street analysts see the wisdom of a fast settlement.
BeatStars revealed today (July 25) that it has entered into a strategic alliance with an AI music startup called Lemonaide, which has developed an AI-powered plug-in that generates ideas for beats. Lemonaide says that its AI is trained “exclusively on voluntarily contributed data from producers” and as explained by founder Jacob in the video below, the tool can generate millions of different combinations:
After months of pressure, Spotify has finally raised its monthly U.S. subscription prices. In wording that seems oddly apologetic and reflects CEO Daniel Ek’s long resistance to raising prices, the company made the announcement in a blog post Monday morning. “The market landscape has continued to evolve since we launched,” it reads. “So that we can keep innovating, we are changing our Premium prices across a number of markets* around the world.
Source: Spotify Finally Raises U.S. Premium Subscription Prices
The perils of artificial intelligence to the entertainment industry came to San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday, with SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland joining a panel of voice actors organized by NAVA, the National Association of Voice Actors, to discuss the specific hazards AI is already posing to the profession.
Studios and producers are scrambling to recruit creators to help fill a content void, stoking tensions over scab work and changing styles of storytelling. But striking actors and writers are increasingly less reliant on Hollywood, too, experimenting with new ideas on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Twitch in ways that could net them lasting followings — if not steady paychecks — that go beyond traditional industry success.
Source: The creator economy was already exploding. Then Hollywood went on strike.
Barry Diller fired publishers’ opening shot at artificial intelligence platforms in a Semafor interview this April, suggesting they sue the companies that have trained models on their data. Now his company, IAC, and a handful of key publishers are close to formalizing a coalition that could lead a lawsuit as well as press for legislative action, people at those companies said.