The music creator economy was thrust into the wider music industry’s limelight with the Covid lockdowns triggering a surge in new creators. Our latest music creator report shows that progressively more creators are starting with lower expectations for streaming. Their royalty expectations are already so low that this is no longer a pain point for them. Instead, they are becoming critical of streaming’s ability to further their careers, focusing on the medium’s closed door between them and their fans.
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GEMA proposes licensing model for AI-generated music
GEMA, a German performing rights collection society and licensing body, has introduced a licensing model for AI providers, seeking to address the use of copyrighted music in AI training and the creation of AI-generated songs. GEMA proposes that authors should receive compensation beyond a one-time payment for training data. It suggests that such one-off payments may not sufficiently compensate authors given the potential revenues from AI-generated content.
Source: GEMA proposes licensing model for AI-generated music
Zuckerberg: creators, publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says there are complex copyright questions around scraping data to train AI models, but he suggests the individual work of most creators isn’t valuable enough for it to matter. In an interview with The Verge deputy editor Alex Heath, Zuckerberg said Meta will likely strike “certain partnerships” for useful content. But if others demand payment, then — as it’s done with news outlets — the company would prefer to walk away.
Source: Mark Zuckerberg: creators and publishers ‘overestimate the value’ of their work for training AI
AI crawlers are hammering sites and nearly taking them offline
Kyle Wiens recognized something was wrong in July when his staff at iFixit began receiving alerts about high traffic on their cellphones. They also were able to identify what had caused the issue: It turned out to be a web crawler sent out into the world by Anthropic, makers of the Claude chatbot, to try and gather training data.
Source: AI crawlers are hammering sites and nearly taking them offline
Google will begin flagging AI-generated images in Search later this year
In the next few months, Google will begin to flag AI-generated and -edited images in the “About this image” window on Search, Google Lens, and the Circle to Search feature on Android. Similar disclosures may make their way to other Google properties, like YouTube, in the future; Google says it’ll have more to share on that later this year. Crucially, only images containing “C2PA metadata” will be flagged as AI-manipulated in Search.
Source: Google will begin flagging AI-generated images in Search later this year
Meta to resume AI training in UK after regulatory pause
Meta will begin using publicly shared content from adult users in the UK on Facebook and Instagram to train its artificial intelligence models. The company will use publicly available information, such as adult users’ posts, comments, photos, and captions on both platforms. In July, Meta paused AI releases in the European Union following the Irish Data Protection Commission’s orders to halt its AI assistant rollout in the EU due to data privacy concerns.
Source: Meta to resume AI training in UK after regulatory pause
AI Explained: Inside the World of Datasets
Artificial intelligence datasets form the bedrock of modern systems. As tech giants and researchers push the boundaries of machine capabilities, the data they use quietly shapes the future of technology — for better or worse. The more relevant, high-quality information an AI system processes, the better it performs. This reality has sparked intense competition for data, with companies racing to amass ever-larger collections of text, images and other information.
Source: AI Explained: Inside the World of Datasets | PYMNTS.com
Federal Lawmaker Urges Mechanical Licensing Collective Reforms
SGA, MCNA, and the Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) today reached out with a formal release doubling down on demands for “much-needed operational and structural improvements” to the Mechanical Licensing Collective. Those improvements were most recently described by Representative Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) in a letter to Register of Copyrights Shira Perlmutter late last month.
Source: Federal Lawmaker Urges Mechanical Licensing Collective Reforms
AllTrack Becomes Fourth U.S. PRO Accepted By CISAC
The International Confederation of Societies of Authors & Composers (CISAC) has integrated AllTrack with its exclusive data exchange tools. AllTrack has joined ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC as fellow U.S.-based PROs affiliated with CISAC. Common Information System tools has made it seamless for collection societies around the world to connect directly with AllTrack.
Sony is excited about its new blockchain platform, Soneium – and music could play a big part in its future
Sony has announced plans to launch a new blockchain platform, Soneium, with plans to integrate the company’s various businesses and intellectual property, potentially including its music catalog. Developed by Sony’s Singapore-headquartered joint venture with Startale Labs, Sony Block Solution Labs, Soneium is described as the “infrastructure network that forms the basis of Web3“.