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Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, 200 artists say AI poses existential threat to their livelihoods

On Tuesday, the Artist Rights Alliance (ARA) announced an open letter critical of AI signed by over 200 musical artists, including Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, and the estate of Frank Sinatra. In the letter, the artists call on AI developers, technology companies, platforms, and digital music services to stop using AI to “infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.”

Source: Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, 200 artists say AI poses existential threat to their livelihoods

AI’s quiet creep into music punctuated by ‘SpongeBob’ voices and a secretive artist called Glorb

SpongeBob, the title cheery yellow character, appears outside his pineapple-shaped home, while Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob’s cranky boss, is at the Krusty Krab restaurant he runs. But unlike in the show, the characters in the videos aren’t singing jolly songs about life in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Instead, they’re rapping about drugs and guns.

Source: AI’s quiet creep into music punctuated by ‘SpongeBob’ voices and a secretive artist called Glorb

The Intersection Of Human Creativity And AI: A Legal Renaissance

In this era, where AI capabilities seem boundless, human time emerges as a finite, invaluable resource. As AI assumes responsibility for routine and complex tasks alike, the focus shifts to the essence of human input — creativity, ethical reasoning, and innovation. This recalibration signifies a deeper appreciation for human attributes, underscoring the irreplaceable nature of human time and insight in a digitized world.

Source: The Intersection Of Human Creativity And AI: A Legal Renaissance

Ed Newton-Rex: Suno is aiming to generate $120 billion per year. But is it trained on copyrighted recordings? 

When an AI company doesn’t reveal its training data sources, the best chance we have of working out those sources is to use the model and see whether we can find output that resembles copyrighted material. Output that resembles copyrighted material is a strong indicator that that material was part of the training data. I, and others, have found that Suno regularly outputs music that closely resembles copyrighted material.

Source: Suno is a music AI company aiming to generate $120 billion per year. But is it trained on copyrighted recordings?

Stability AI Launches Stable Audio 2.0 With Audio-to-Audio Generation Feature

Stability AI has launched Stable Audio 2.0, adding key new functions to the company’s text-to-music generator. Stable Audio 2.0 features audio-to-audio generation, allowing users to manipulate any audio sample they want using text-based AI prompts. Its terms of service, however, requires that any audio uploaded to this tool is free of copyrighted material, with the tool employing a content recognition filter to ensure compliance.

Source: Stability AI Launches Stable Audio 2.0 With Audio-to-Audio Generation Feature

Changes to Spotify’s royalty model, including the 1,000 annual streams royalty policy, are officially live as of April 1

Changes to the way Spotify calculates recorded royalties went live on the platform as of Monday. Spotify says it won’t share the number of unique listeners required to become eligible for royalties “to prevent further manipulation by bad actors”. Spotify said in a blog post that “99.5% of all streams” on its platform “are of tracks that have at least 1,000 annual streams”, and that “each of those tracks will earn more under this policy”.

Source: Changes to Spotify’s royalty model, including the 1,000 annual streams royalty policy, are officially live as of April 1

For Data-Guzzling AI Companies, the Internet Is Too Small

Companies racing to develop more powerful artificial intelligence are rapidly nearing a new problem: The internet might be too small for their plans. Ever more powerful systems developed by OpenAI, Google and others require larger oceans of information to learn from. That demand is straining the available pool of quality public data online at the same time that some data owners are blocking access to AI companies.

Source: For Data-Guzzling AI Companies, the Internet Is Too Small

AI has arrived in Hollywood. It’s a lot more boring than you might think

The new horror film Late Night with the Devil hit theaters late last month amid a lot of really good buzz. It has a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and has broken box office records for its distributor, IFC Films. It seemed poised to become the indie movie success story of the first half of 2024. But that buzz has curdled quite a bit once word started to circulate that generative AI had been used in the film.

Source: AI has arrived in Hollywood. It’s a lot more boring than you might think

OpenAI deems its voice cloning tool too risky for general release

A new tool from OpenAI that can generate a convincing clone of anyone’s voice using just 15 seconds of recorded audio has been deemed too risky for general release, as the AI lab seeks to minimise the threat of damaging misinformation in a global year of elections. “We hope to start a dialogue on the responsible deployment of synthetic voices, and how society can adapt to these new capabilities,” OpenAI said in an unsigned blogpost.

Source: OpenAI deems its voice cloning tool too risky for general release

UK Govt: “Pronounced Inaccuracies” in Press Reports on IP-Related Matters

A study on emerging public perceptions of intellectual property in UK media has found that there are “pronounced inaccuracies in the reporting on IP related matters in the UK Press.” An initial review published by the UK’s Intellectual Property Office notes that inaccurate reporting may be due to a “lack of understanding.” Further investigation would be required to find out the “cause and extent” and the subsequent impact on IP rights as understood by the public.

Source: UK Govt: “Pronounced Inaccuracies” in Press Reports on IP-Related Matters * TorrentFreak

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