Monet’s success — her five songs have racked up 17 million U.S. streams and generated an estimated $52,000 over two months — has led to ethical conflicts in the business. Some reps from indie labels who spoke with Billboard say they would never sign an AI artist because they’re committed to human creators. Like Kehlani, they resent the idea that a poet in her bedroom pushing a few buttons can compete with human artists.
Source: AI Artists Are Here. Is It Ethical to Sign Them to Record Deals?
Independent music licensing group Merlin and Spotify have renewed their global, multi-year licensing partnership. According to the companies, the agreement, announced on Tuesday (September 30), “reinforces the vital role of independent music on Spotify and provides Merlin members continued access to a platform that reaches fans worldwide”.
Source: Spotify and Merlin ink multi-year global licensing deal
OpenAI began alerting talent agencies and studios about the forthcoming product and its opt-out process over the past week and plans to release the new version in the coming days, the people said. The opt-out process for the new version of Sora means that movie studios and other intellectual property owners would have to explicitly ask OpenAI not to include their copyright material in videos the tool creates.
Source: OpenAI’s New Sora Video Generator to Require Copyright Holders to Opt Out
Music streaming giant Spotify said on Tuesday that its founder, Daniel Ek, is stepping down as CEO and will become the company’s executive chairman by the year’s end. The company is replacing Ek with two co-CEOs chosen in house: Gustav Söderström, co-president and chief product and technology officer, and Alex Norström, co-president and chief business officer.
Source: Spotify’s founder and CEO Daniel Ek is stepping down | TechCrunch
You could practically hear Hollywood executives groaning Monday after President Donald Trump mused again about imposing a “100%” tariff on films produced abroad. But at least two local legislators saw an opportunity in Trump’s latest riff. Just hours after the president’s Truth Social post, California Sen. Adam Schiff and U.S. Rep. Laura Friedman attempted to redirect the conversation to their pet project: a federal film and television tax incentive.
Source: Legislators to Trump: Consider a Federal Film and TV Tax Credit Instead
Rather than generate new songs, Adapt lets users reshape tracks in Epidemic’s catalog of 50,000 tracks and 200,000 sound effects —adjusting length, tempo, structure, or instrumentation with a few clicks. “It’s quite common you find a track you like, but then making it perfect for your story takes hours,” Höglund said. “The idea behind Adapt was to put those tools in the hands of creators so they can make those decisions immediately.”
Source: Epidemic Sound’s Bold AI Bet, Helping Creators And Paying Artists More
The figure was disclosed during a press briefing where executives outlined a three-pronged approach to combat AI-enabled fraud while supporting legitimate artistic use of artificial intelligence tools. “In the past 12 months alone, a period marked by the explosion of generative AI tools, we’ve removed over 75 million spammy tracks from Spotify,” the company confirmed in its official blog post announcing the measures.
Source: Spotify has deleted 75m+ ‘spammy tracks’ – as it unveils new AI music policies
The two major music companies have each partnered with a research lab called SoundPatrol, which has developed a patent-pending method to analyze music. SoundPatrol, which originated at Stanford University, is developing what it calls a “forensic AI model for audio-video fingerprinting,” which it claims “represents a step change from existing detection methods.”
Spotify on Thursday announced a series of updates to its AI policy, designed to better indicate when AI is being used to make music, to cut down on spam, and to make it clearer that unauthorized voice clones are not permitted on its service. The company says it will adopt an industry standard for identifying and labeling AI music in credits, known as DDEX, and will soon roll out a new music spam filter to catch more bad actors.
Source: Spotify to label AI music, filter spam and more in AI policy change | TechCrunch
Hallwood Media signed a deal with Telisha “Nikki” Jones after negotiations that purportedly included an offer of $3 million, Billboard reported. Jones is a Mississippi-based lyricist behind the R&B artist “Xania Monet” whose most popular song on Spotify racked up over 1 million listens, and whose Reels regularly top 100,000 views on Instagram – despite her likeness, vocals, and music being AI-generated.
Source: What happens when an AI-generated artist gets a record deal? A copyright mess