Technology

Spotify is taking concerns about the impact of AI-generated music on entertainment rightsholders seriously, CEO Daniel Ek told analysts. “[T]he AI pushback from the copyright industry, or labels and media companies, is really [concerned with] issues like ‘name and likeness’, what is an actual copyright, who owns the right to something where you upload something and claim it to be Drake [when] it’s really not, and so on,” Ek said. “Those are legitimate concerns.”

Source: Spotify confirms it’s working with labels to quell copyright threat from AI music

DSPs are already being flooded with new tracks – nearly 100,000 new tracks per day, according to a recent estimate. Much of it, say critics, is low quality, and given the trend of uploading random noise files to generate plays, some of it isn’t even music at all. “We want to give our customers a high-quality experience and relevant content, so obviously getting AI to flood our catalog is not something we’re super keen on, and we’re working on that,” Jeronimo Folgueira, CEO of Deezer told analysts.

Source: Deezer is ‘supportive’ of helping labels battle deluge of AI music… while also making its own AI music for its ‘Zen by Deezer’ app

If you apply Gartner’s famous hype cycle methodology to web3 technologies and music, where do we stand in 2023? The peak of inflated expectations was some time ago, but are we still mired in the trough of disillusionment? Or, perhaps, are we making our way up the slope of enlightenment, with well-calibrated bullshit meters helping us to figure out how web3 can really help artists, fans and the music industry?

Source: web3 music in 2023: experiments, communities… and weirdness – Music Ally

The European Commission on Tuesday released a list of 17 Very Large Online Platforms (VLOPs) and 2 Very Large Online Search Engines (VLOSEs) that will need to comply with tough new privacy and content moderation tools under the European Union’s Digital Services Act. Under the DSA, which the European Union adopted in October, the designated platforms will now have 4 months to comply.

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“Heart on My Sleeve” may be among the most successful examples of machine-generated media, but it’s just a part of a flood of AI-derived images and sounds that has washed across the Internet in recent months. That flood hints at a version of our digital future in which each of us lives in a fully personalized entertainment bubble, with videos and songs pumped out by AI in seconds, just for us.

Source: AI vs. the culture industry

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a challenge by computer scientist Stephen Thaler to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s refusal to issue patents for inventions his artificial intelligence system created. The justices turned away Thaler’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that patents can be issued only to human inventors and that his AI system could not be considered the legal creator of two inventions that he has said it generated.

Source: US Supreme Court rejects computer scientist’s lawsuit over AI-generated inventions

An impending Supreme Court ruling focusing on whether legal protections given to Big Tech extend to their algorithms and recommendation features could have significant implications for future cases surrounding artificial intelligence, according to experts. In late February, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments examining the extent of legal immunity given to tech companies that allow third-party users to publish content on their platforms.

Source: Landmark Supreme Court case could have ‘far reaching implications’ for artificial intelligence, experts say

The technology puts voice actors, the often-nameless professionals who narrate audiobooks, video games and commercials, in a particularly precarious position. While their voices are often known, they rarely command the star power necessary to wield control of their voice. The law offers little refuge, since copyright provisions haven’t grappled with artificial intelligence’s ability to recreate humanlike speech, text and photos.

Source: Their voices are their livelihood. Now AI could take it away.

The journalist and author Stephen Marche wrote “Death of an Author” using three artificial intelligence programs. Or three artificial intelligence programs wrote it with extensive plotting and prompting from Stephen Marche. It depends on how you look at it. “I am the creator of this work, 100 percent,” Marche said, “but, on the other hand, I didn’t create the words.”

Source: Peering Into the Future of Novels, With Trained Machines Ready

Web3 media company Public Pressure has formed a new London-based division, called Public Pressure Music to oversee all activities related to music. This includes its collaborations with the fashion and gaming industries, IP management and content acquisitions related to the Public Pressure marketplace, which is the company’s platform for the sale and purchase of NFTs.

Source: Web3 company Public Pressure forms music division in London, led by Managing Director Stephen King