Large language models churn out speech by the mile. Chatbots hallucinate and write strange things, spewing statements they think are true but are false—like many politicians. Both OpenAI and Microsoft have been sued for defamation for their chatbot’s output. Congress and courts should label generative AI companies as publishers, which they are, with all the ensuing copyright and liability issues.
Source: Section 230 Catches Up to AI
Music rightsholders want AI-music companies to ask permission and strike licensing deals before training their models on commercial recordings. Now US firm SoundExchange has announced plans to launch a registry of sound recordings that will give AI companies a clear picture of what they can and can’t use for their training processes. It will launch in the first quarter of 2025, built using its existing ISRC (international standard recording code) database.
Source: SoundExchange signals plans for AI registry for music creators
The Motion Picture Association has added Amazon MGM Studios and Prime Video as its newest member. The Amazon outlets will officially join on Oct. 1 as the seventh member of the industry trade and lobbying organization. Netflix joined the association in 2019, a move that reflected the shift of the industry toward streaming, and the influence of tech giants on the business.
Source: MPA Adds Amazon Prime Video And MGM Studios As Newest Member
A federal judge on Friday brutally district Court Judge Vincent Chhabria accused the plaintiffs’ attorneys of dragging out litigation that may help set important guardrails for the emerging technology. “You are not doing your job. This is an important case,” Chhabria told lead counsel Joseph Saveri during an hour-long video conference about fact-finding issues in the case.
Source: Judge sharply criticizes lawyers for authors in AI suit against Meta
In a significant move, Lionsgate and the video-focused artificial intelligence research firm Runway have inked a deal that will see Runway train a new generative AI model on Lionsgate content, and will see the entertainment company use the tech as it produces future film and TV projects. While details are scarce, the companies say that the new model will be “customized to Lionsgate’s proprietary portfolio of film and television content,” and exclusive to the studio.
Source: Lionsgate Inks Deal With AI Firm to Mine Its Massive Film and TV Library
AI music maker Suno has released a new feature called Covers that reinterprets your songs in new genres, almost like a photo filter or asking ChatGPT to mimic an author’s style, but for audio. Currently in beta, the feature transforms audio inputs, whether it’s you singing in the shower or produced tracks, into multiple musical forms while preserving the original melody.
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
California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited SAG-AFTRA headquarters on Monday to sign two bills regulating the use of performances generated by artificial intelligence. The actors’ union lobbied for passage of the legislation, which builds on the protections won during the four-month actors’ strike against the major studios last year.
Source: Gov. Gavin Newsom Signs AI Bills Backed by SAG-AFTRA
Universal Music Group hosted its 2024 Capital Markets Day in London on Tuesday at the iconic Abbey Road Studios (which is owned by UMG). The event was kicked off by UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge. “Fact number one”, according to Grainge, is that “streaming has resulted in a quantum leap forward in music access and monetization and streaming will continue to propel many years of industry growth.”
The music industry has been clear on its views about training musical AIs: licensing deals are required. But what should those licensing deals look like? A new white paper written by Professor Daniel J. Gervais of Vanderbilt Law School offers some ideas on that. “The best way for creators to generate a decent stream of ongoing revenue for the use of their copyrighted works by GenAI applications is to be paid when the datasets used to train GenAI containing their works are used to create new ‘content’.”
Source: Could a new remuneration right be the key to AI music licensing?