Researchers at Facebook’s parent company have developed an AI text-to-music generator called MusicGen. The language model, described by Meta’s Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team as “a simple and controllable model for music generation”, can take text prompts like, for example, ‘up-beat acoustic folk’ or “Pop dance track with catchy melodies” and turn them into new 12-second music clips.
Source: Meta just released an AI music generator that was trained on 20,000 hours of licensed music
The guidance chiefly covers the contractual use of authors’ original work by publishers and production companies. It asks that writers be aware of any rights over their work or likeness that they could be forfeiting in their contracts. Performers and audiobook narrators are warned to be aware that by permitting the copying of their voice they could potentially compromise their future work by inadvertently permitting sophisticated speech modeling systems to substitute for performances.
Source: UK Authors’ Union Issues Guidance to ‘Protect’ Writers’ Work From AI – Decrypt
UK-based audio search and detection startup Figaro wants to help streaming services to deal with the nuanced challenges of AI-generated music. The company is responding to the recent industry debates about this topic by extending its audio-search technology into AI content moderation. CEO Lydia Gregory told Music Ally that its focus is on helping DSPs to tackle three separate (but related) issues with content: quantity, quality and copyright infringement.
Source: Figaro will help streaming services deal with AI-generated music – Music Ally
The company said that initially, its goal with this is to ensure artists, labels and listeners alike know “what’s ‘real’ or AI-generated on the platform”, as well as reducing fraud. However, Deezer added that its longer-term goal is to “develop a remuneration model that distinguishes between different types of music creation”.
Source: Deezer to identify and tag AI-generated music on its service – Music Ally
According to a new report, Universal Music Group and SoundCloud are discussing changes to music royalty structure. Those familiar with the matter said the two companies are likely to reach a conclusion before the end of the year. Both UMG and SoundCloud declined to comment to Bloomberg and no exact details have been ironed out.
Source: Universal Music Group, SoundCloud Discuss Music Royalty Deal
With a lack of affiliation with PROs and CMOs, indie songwriters and publishers generally miss out on the opportunities these organizations can offer. As a European IME, Bridger is authorized to collect mechanical and performing rights royalties directly without intermediaries. Unlike most other global distribution and royalty collection services that serve as copyright administrators, Bridger functions like a CMO for smaller, underrepresented indie artists.
Source: Bridger Is Building a PRO Alternative for Indie Artists
The Copyright Royalty Board issued a landmark determination Tuesday (May 23) for Phonorecords III, maintaining an up to 44% raise for U.S. songwriters and publishers’ headline rate for mechanicals by the end of the period of 2018 to 2022. The ruling increases those royalties each year during the five-year period — from 11.4% to 15.1% of service revenue by 2022 — but also affirmed key requests from streaming services during their lengthy appeal.
Source: Songwriters’ Streaming Royalties Have Been Determined (Finally)
The music industry has been grappling with the challenge of royalty payments for a long time. The royalty payment system involves multiple stakeholders, including record labels, publishers, and performance rights organizations (PROs), which can make the process opaque and complex. This can result in mistrust within the industry and lead to difficulties in tracking and distributing royalties accurately.
Source: Dispelling the utopian dream: the complex reality of music royalties (Guest column) – Music Ally
IMPALA’s questioning of a potential “reform” of the “allocation” of streaming revenue – vis à vis music publishing and recorded music – has predictably not gone down well with the US-based National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA). After reading the IMPALA report, NMPA CEO David Israelite said, “The IMPALA report implying that songwriters should receive less from streaming models is irresponsible and offensive.”
IMPALA’s new report points out that the Intellectual Property Office study found that “under streaming, the label’s share of revenue has decreased (concurrently to an increase of revenues to artists) and that the share allocated to publishing rights has increased significantly more than that of recording rights (with songwriters seeing a corresponding increase)”.