As Google continues to navigate its relationship with publishers, regulators, and news readers, the company is starting a pretty drastic test: it will remove news articles from European Union-based publishers from Search. Google says it’s running the “time-limited” test because EU regulators and publishers “have asked for additional data about the effect of news content in Search.” The company says it will continue to show results from websites and news publishers located outside the EU.
Source: Google is testing the ‘impact’ of removing EU news from search results
Spotify cranked up the volume with another strong quarter, packing on 6 million paying subscribers globally in Q3 and issuing an upbeat forecast for the year-end quarter. Spotify gained 14 million total monthly active users (free and paid) to stand at 640 million at the end of Q3. Premium subs stood at 252 million, with growth in the quarter across all regions and “outperformance” led by Europe and Latin America, the company said.
Musical.AI, which bills itself as the company that built the world’s first secure platform for rights management in AI training, has partnered with China-headquartered license management firm Kanjian to bring what it says is a fully licensed, ready-to-use music catalog to AI developers.
Dutch publisher Veen Bosch & Keuning’s announcement that it would use AI translation for commercial fiction has outraged both authors and translators – despite attempts to reassure them with promises that no books will be translated in this way without careful checking and that authors will have to give consent. “A translator translates more than just words, we build bridges between cultures, taking into account the target readership every step of the way,” says Michele Hutchison, winner of 2020’s International Booker prize.
The platform, currently in beta testing, is set to officially launch in early 2025 and access will be by invite only. It is said to be “the first in the market to offer AI attribution via Sureel AI.” The tech will enable artists and labels to track how their music is used in AI training models and determine fair compensation for AI-generated outputs.
Though the band has been broken up for 50 years, Paul McCartney decided to use AI last year to create “the last Beatles record.” McCartney isn’t using this technology to resurrect his late bandmates, John Lennon and George Harrison, with deepfakes. Instead, McCartney took one of Lennon’s demos from 1978 and used AI to clean up the recording’s poor sound quality.