‘It’s terrifying’: songwriter behind Robbie Williams hits out at AI in the music industry

The songwriter behind hits for Robbie Williams and Kylie Minogue has described the acceleration in use of artificial intelligence in the music industry as “terrifying” because of its potential to replace songwriters. Guy Chambers, who has collaborated with Williams over more than two decades, said: “I think we may get to a stage in the future where an album will need to have a badge saying ‘this is an all-human record’.

Source: ‘It’s terrifying’: songwriter behind Robbie Williams hits out at AI in the music industry

Australian news media could seek payment from Meta for content used to train AI

When Meta announced last week that it would not sign new deals to pay for news in Australia for use on Facebook, it downplayed the value of news to its services, stating that just 3% of Facebook usage in Australia was related to news. There are now calls to designate Meta under the news media bargaining code, which would force the company to negotiate with news media publishers and pay for news content on its platforms.

Source: Australian news media could seek payment from Meta for content used to train AI

Rashida Tlaib Introduces New Bill to Fix Streaming Royalties

The United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) are celebrating the introduction of the Living Wage for Musicians Act, led by Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Jamaal Bowman, to Congress. The bill, shared with Digital Music News on Wednesday (March 6th), would create a new streaming royalty and help ensure that artists and musicians can build sustainable careers in the age of streaming.

Source: Rashida Tlaib Introduces New Bill to Fix Streaming Royalties

Midjourney Accuses Stability AI of Image Theft, Bans Its Employees

While DALL-E developer OpenAI is busy fighting with Elon Musk, the creators of two other notable image generation AIs, Midjourney and Stability AI, seem to have sparked a beef of their own over the most ironic thing imaginable, considering the nature of the companies involved – image theft. It is claimed that employees from Stability AI infiltrated Midjourney’s database and stole all prompt and image pairs, an action that also caused a 24-hour outage.

Source: Midjourney Accuses Stability AI of Image Theft, Bans Its Employees

Spotify to increase subscription prices in France to ‘offset’ new music streaming tax

Music streaming giant Spotify announced today (March 7) that it will be raising subscription prices in France in response to the recent implementation of a new government tax on music streaming services. This decision comes after months of contention between the company and the French government, with Spotify arguing the tax unfairly burdens consumers and hinders its ability to operate in the market.

Source: Spotify to increase subscription prices in France to ‘offset’ new music streaming tax

Pornhub challenges EU over online content rules

The adult site is facing new obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), including strict requirements on age verification. The new rules apply to what the EU designates a Very large Online Platform (VLOP) – which Pornhub says it is not. “We believe the European Commission erred in its calculation of our user numbers”, the firm said. To be designated a VLOP, a site needs to be visited by more than 45 million Europeans on average every month – a threshold the EU says Pornhub meets.

Source: Pornhub challenges EU over online content rules

Europe Enters New Era of Tech Regulation With Digital Markets Act

It will be months, if not years, before the usefulness and the unintended consequences of the EU legislation will become clear, but already the DMA has forced tech giants, from Alphabet to TikTok, to change how they operate in the EU or face the threat of hefty fines. First-time DMA offenders can be penalized up to 10 percent of their company’s total worldwide turnover.

Source: Europe Enters New Era of Tech Regulation With Digital Markets Act

AIMP Statement on TikTok Music Licensing

The statement comes in the face of multiple publishers in the industry withdrawing their catalogs from the short-form video platform and denying the renewal of a licensing deal. “Whether or not indie publishers are provided with the opportunity to continue with the current license model or not, there are a few issues that need to be addressed,” the statement begins.

Source: AIMP Statement on TikTok Music Licensing

National Music Publishers Assn. Does Not Plan to Renew TikTok License 

The standoff between TikTok and Universal took a turn when the National Music Publishers Assn., which reps many indies, said it does not plan to renew. If more publishers join in — the two other major companies, Sony and Warner Chappell, have not yet done so — it would mean more music will vanish from the platform and more artists and songwriters will see their livelihoods impacted.

Source: National Music Publishers Assn. Does Not Plan to Renew TikTok License — Will Indie Publishers Follow?

Researchers tested leading AI models for copyright infringement. GPT-4 performed worst

Patronus AI on Wednesday released research showcasing how often leading AI models produce copyrighted content. “We pretty much found copyrighted content across the board, across all models that we evaluated, whether it’s open source or closed source,” Rebecca Qian, Patronus AI’s cofounder and CTO, said. “Perhaps what was surprising is that we found that OpenAI’s GPT-4 produced copyrighted content on 44% of prompts that we constructed.”

Source: Researchers tested leading AI models for copyright infringement using popular books, and GPT-4 performed worst

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