The parade of second quarter earnings reports for major showbiz conglomerates made it crystal-clear that there is no more avoiding the 800-pound gorilla on the balance sheets of Big Media. It’s been a long time coming that the valuations long applied to old-fashioned cable channels have to be slashed by double digits.
Source: Hot August Write-Downs: Big Media Can’t Hide From Hard Decisions on Cable Valuations Any More
The collaboration will integrate AudioShake’s tech into Synchtank’s platform, enabling creators to produce stems directly within their workflow. AudioShake uses AI to break down music tracks into individual stems, which can then be used for remixes, sampling, and other purposes. This technology allows for the separation of vocals or dialogue from instruments, particularly in older recordings where the original multitrack files are not accessible.
Meta — home to Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — and Universal Music Group have announced an expanded agreement that addresses compensation and AI. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the announcement says the new agreement “reflects the two companies’ shared commitment to protecting human creators and artistry, including ensuring that artists and songwriters are compensated fairly.”
Source: Universal Music and Meta Announce ‘Expanded Global Agreement’ for AI, Monetization and More
The conversation in many professional media circles is already turning to how much AI will be able to do and how many traditional creative jobs will be displaced as a consequence. It’s smaller AI companies that are breaking new ground. Firms like Runway, LeyLine & Synthesia are redefining how we create, edit, and share video and animation content.
Lemonaide, which describes itself as an “artist-first creative AI” platform, has launched a new tool called ‘Collab Club,’ that allows professional producers to train their own AI models using their own catalogs. The launch comes a little over a year after Lemonaide and beat buying and selling platform BeatStars struck a strategic alliance with the aim “to establish a precedent for ethical AI business models in the music industry.”
Source: AI music startup Lemonaide introduces new collab tool promising ‘ethical’ AI models
Stars from Hollywood’s golden age are being reborn through celebrity estate AI voice cloning deals, a sign of how some of the “Wild West” concerns about unauthorized AI impersonation are being addressed by new business models. ElevenLabs, an audio technology startup, has penned multiple deals with the estates of legendary actors for its IconicVoices tool that allows users to have AI-generated voices read to them via an audiobook app.
Artists have long criticized Spotify for its meager royalties system and its questionable content moderation practices. Now artists must contend with an entirely different problem: increased competition from AI-generated tracks, some of which have gained hundreds of thousands of listens.
Source: Spotify is full of AI music, and some say it’s ruining the platform
SAG-AFTRA’s strike against video game companies over the use of AI presents new concerns over digital replicas and synthetic performances. The guild’s position is actors aren’t defined by the medium. Whether it’s film, TV, or video games, AI and other rights should be consistent; video game studios, to put it mildly, disagree.
Source: SAG-AFTRA vs. AI: Why the Video-Game Strike Impacts All Actors
Thomson said in a statement alongside the financial results: “Our landmark agreement with OpenAI is not only expected to be lucrative, but will enable us to work closely with a trusted, pre-eminent partner to fashion a future for professional journalism and for provenance. Meanwhile, we have begun to take legal steps against AI aggressors, the egregious aggregators, who are predatory in the confiscation of our content. ‘Open source’ can never be a justification for ‘open slather.’”
Source: News Corp has begun legal moves against ‘AI aggressors’, CEO reveals
Imagine scrolling through your feed, uncertain whether the product images from your favorite brand are genuine, or if news photos accurately depict world events. The solution, surprisingly, may not lie in cutting-edge technology, but in our most fundamental human characteristic: trust. At its core, trust is a relationship between people, not machines. We don’t truly trust software or algorithms; we trust the individuals and organizations behind them.