UMG has been building a patent portfolio around AI-music infrastructure, through a partnership with IP asset management, investment, and advisory firm Liquidax Capital. The technology, depending on how it is commercially deployed, could potentially support a so-called ‘walled garden’ approach to AI-generated music derivatives, among other possible applications, which currently remain unclear.
Source: Inside the UMG-backed patent portfolio targeting AI music derivatives
Spotify has started testing a feature that shows whether artificial intelligence was used in making a song — but the tags only appear when an artist chooses to add them. The ‘AI Credits’ feature, currently in beta, was quietly disclosed within Spotify’s updated Support page. It shows AI contributions within the song credits section of Spotify’s mobile app. The move comes in response to growing pressure over AI-generated content on streaming platforms.
UK media leaders grappled with five key challenges facing the news industry at Press Gazette’s Future of Media Trends event in London on Wednesday. The elephant in the room was the promise of AI content marketplaces which could start seeing publishers rewarded for the growing AI-powered news audience. There were no easy solutions on offer, but plenty of individual success stories.
Source: AI content marketplaces can’t come soon enough for news publishers
Taylor Swift has taken a new legal step seemingly aimed at protecting her identity in the age of AI — following in the footsteps of actor Matthew McConaughey. On Friday, April 24, Swift’s company filed three trademark applications with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Two relate to sound trademarks covering her voice: one is “Hey, it’s Taylor Swift,” and the other is “Hey, it’s Taylor.”
Source: Taylor Swift Files to Trademark Her Voice and Likeness to Protect Against AI Misuse
For many software companies, as well as authors, artists and musicians, the risk is not just direct copying. It’s that the market for their work could be flooded with A.I.-generated substitutes that cost almost nothing to produce. “What happened with the Claude Code leak is essentially a preview of what’s coming for every creative industry,” said Russ Pearlman, a lawyer specializing in A.I. and technology. Existing copyright rules, he said, were built on the assumption that copying takes time and that there’s a meaningful window to take action to protect a work.
Source: Anthropic’s Leaked Code Tests Copyright Challenges in A.I. Era
Tuned Global, the technology platform used by businesses to power licensed music and audio services, has launched what it calls a Service Manipulation Detection (SMD) system, designed to help streaming platforms and rightsholders identify and act on that activity. The offering, announced on Tuesday (April 21), monitors for manipulation tactics including bot usage, click farms, scripted listening and coordinated repeat plays – all of which can distort play counts, chart positions and royalty allocations.
Source: Tuned Global launches streaming manipulation detection tool
The technology works similarly to YouTube’s existing Content ID system, which detects copyright-protected material in users’ uploaded videos, allowing rights owners to request removal or share in the video’s revenue. Likeness detection does the same, but for simulated faces. The feature is meant to help protect creators and other public figures from having their identities used without their permission — a common problem for celebrities who find their likenesses have been used in scam advertisements.
Source: YouTube expands its AI likeness detection technology to celebrities
UMG and the other music companies urged a federal judge last month to find that Anthropic’s use of its intellectual property was not “fair use” — a legal tenet that excludes “transformative” uses of a work from copyright protection. Now the AI giant is hitting back, saying in a Monday (April 20) brief of its own that the publishers cannot “meaningfully dispute that training on lyrics (and other copyrighted text) is transformative.”
Source: Anthropic Argues for Fair Use in UMG’s AI Lawsuit: ‘Training on Lyrics Is Transformative’
While the research found that “exposure is still concentrated around superstar artists” there were some bright spots. “Younger listeners emerge as key drivers of diversity, showing greater openness to new genres and emerging artists”. The report identifies some big challenges too. A mountain of new releases – “worsened by streaming fraud and the rapid proliferation of AI-generated music”.
Source: EU study examines music discoverability on streaming services
News publishers have disputed a claim from Google that using their content to “fine-tune” its AI models contains “no realistic prospect of harm” to them. Google told the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority that there is “no realistic prospect of harm to publishers in respect of training/fine-tuning of AI models for search and search generative AI features. “Fine-tuning helps the model learn how to process information rather than what current information to display.”