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.
Source: Musical.AI teams up with China’s Kanjian to deliver licensed music to AI developers
Particle’s plan is to use AI to do two particularly useful things. First, it organizes lots of articles and coverage into collections the platform calls “Stories,” so you can get lots of information and perspective on whatever you’re reading about. Some stories in Particle include more than 100 news articles, plus X posts, a section of salient quotes on the subject, and more.
Source: Particle is a new app using AI to organize and summarize the news
Researchers in Japan have used artificial intelligence to recreate a stunningly accurate 3D model of a centuries-old stone relief based on a single, faded photograph taken 134 years ago. This technique could prove a game-changer for digital preservation, especially for artifacts that are hidden, too fragile to be excavated, or too delicate for conventional 3D modeling.
Source: Breakthrough A.I. Model Reveals Lost Ancient Relief from 134-Year-Old Photo
The late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia’s estate has recreated his voice using AI in partnership with Eleven Labs. The singer-songwriter’s voice can now read to ElevenReader app users their choice of audiobooks, articles, poetry, PDFs, and more through what Eleven calls the Iconic Listening Experience, Billboard reported. Garcia’s voice is available in 32 different languages.
Source: Jerry Garcia’s AI-Created Voice Can Now Narrate Audiobooks, Articles and More
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.
Source: ‘It gets more and more confused’: can AI replace translators?
Blackstone’s Hipgnosis has successfully completed a $1.47 billion music rights asset-backed securities transaction (i.e. bond offering). The ABS deal, referred to as Lyra 24-2, sees investment giant Blackstone raise $1.47 billion in debt financing backed by royalties from the 45,000-song Hipgnosis Songs Fund portfolio it acquired in July. Blackstone acquired Hipgnosis Songs Fund‘s assets from HSF’s then-public shareholders in a transaction worth USD $1.584 billion.
Source: Blackstone’s Hipgnosis closes $1.47bn asset-backed securities transaction
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.
Source: Rostrum Pacific unveils AI-powered music distribution platform SpaceHeater
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.
Source: The Beatles’ AI-assisted track ‘Now and Then’ is nominated for two Grammy awards
Streaming has reduced musicians’ income from record sales. This has made concerts the main source of income for many. “AI will not take over the concert market. People will always be interested in what other people do. And we will still want to experience live music,” Jeffs says. At the same time, he sees that many side jobs for musicians are already disappearing. These include jobs creating background music, jingles for radio and podcasts, and music for films, games and advertising.
Source: ‘Artificial intelligence is not a threat to music,’ says researcher
For many news publishers around the world Google Discover is now their primary source of traffic. Research from NewzDash, a news performance monitoring tool, shows that on average Discover accounts for 55% of publishers’ total Google traffic. This is up from 41% in a previous study. Yet it’s a risky strategy to rely on Discover traffic. Several Googlers are on record saying sites shouldn’t rely on Discover.
Source: Publishers hooked on Google Discover traffic risk race to the bottom