The recent release of the song “Heart on My Sleeve,” with a vocal track featuring the AI-cloned “voice” of Drake and The Weeknd, sent a shockwave through the music industry. But artificial intelligence technology has been in use in the music business since before the latest generation of generative AI tools were widely available. We asked Jessica Powell, CEO of 2021 startup Audioshake, which uses AI to isolate and separate stems from recordings, whether fake Drake represents a break from the past, or more of the same.
RightsTech: Audioshake has been using artificial intelligence technology to help music rights owners create new licensing and monetization opportunities since before the current generation of generative AI tools were commercially available. Do you envision those new tools also playing a role in Audioshakes’ business?
In August, a digital artist who closely guards his personal identity, going only by the online alias “loafgren,” did what the masters of his trade do best. He stole. Loafgren slapped a copy of “polka dots,” a famous work by Damien Hirst, one of the world’s most prominent artists, on a digital image of a pair of Crocs.
Although the dispute is fascinating, it may not turn out to be a landmark case for copyright and trademark law in the NFT age. Aaron Moss, an intellectual property attorney at Greenberg Glusker who’s an expert in entertainment cases, wrote in a blog post that this wasn’t really much of a copyright dispute at all and didn’t even have all that much to do with the weird nature of NFTs. It’s more a matter of interpreting Tarantino’s contract.
As Spotify steadily acquires audio content companies and distributors (such as Anchor and Gimlet, which it bought in 2019 for $340 million), and pushes out new features like live audio, paid subscription, video, polls, and other modes of personalization and interactivity, the company is setting out to become not only the biggest podcast platform in the world, but also the most transformative.
Over the weekend, “No Time to Die” eclipsed $730 million in global ticket sales, making the James Bond sequel both the year’s highest-grossing Hollywood film and the top performing film since COVID-19 appeared. However, the movie cost more than $250 million to produce, at least $100 million to promote and tens of millions more to postpone over 16 months. Insiders say “No Time to Die” needs to make closer to $900 million to break even, a feat that would have been realistic had a global health crisis not entirely upended the theater industry.
Chinese technology giant