intellectual property

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Grimes collaboration with music platform makes 200+ AI songs available for creators

November 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Artists

Grimes’ manager Daouda Leonard and music platform Slip.stream explain the importance of artists owning their data and controlling their rights to stay ahead in their approach to AI.

The rapid emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) into the public sector has proven to be one of the biggest developments of the year on a global scale.

Major industries have been turned upside down with AI now on the scene. In the creative sectors, the music industry in particular, AI is often seen as a double-edged sword: a creativity kickstarter and a thief in the night of copyrights.

The popular musician and producer Grimes, however, has had a different approach to being an artist in the time of emerging AI. She was one of the first artists to be vocal about the technology after its explosion in popularity in late 2022 with the release of ChatGPT.

In April, Grimes famously said she would split 50% of the royalties with the creators generating AI music using her vocals. It was after this that Grimes announced her new platform elf.tech, an open-source software program solely dedicated to legally replicating her voice for music creation.

HOW TO MAKE MUSIC FEAT GrimesAI
- we can distribute it for you and you can earn royalties from your work: https://t.co/p598CXaXnD
— Grimes (@Grimezsz) April 30, 2023

In September, Grimes was included as one of Time Magazine’s Top 100 People in AI. Recently, Grimes and her team partnered with music creation platform Slip.stream to make 200+ GrimesAI songs available for use by creators.

Cointelegraph spoke with Grimes’ manager and CEO of research studio for musician’s IP rights CreateSafe, Daouda Leonard, along with the team behind Slip.stream, to understand how creatives can get ahead in their approach to AI.

Daouda pinpointed the current moment on the timeline of the technological revolution as the “DARQ ages (Distributed, Artificial, Reality and Quantum). “The only way through it is to use it,” he said. “I think all industry executives, artists, and companies need to be experimenting with new emergent technologies.”

“By rights holders allowing new technology platforms to train with their data, they can be proactive about striking lucrative deals for their artists and catalogs.”

With AI, creators can now utilize artists’ voices, for example, in their own creations, and AI companies are taking creative data to train their systems. Therefore, a strong content management system and royalties mechanism need to be a priority.

Grimes’ management said it’s also using another emerging technology, smart contracts, to make this happen and manage metadata information about “who did what, when and what they’re owed.”

Slip.stream, being the platform that houses the available Grimes AI tracks, echoed the sentiment saying:

“It’s up to forward-thinking artists, executives, and companies to dream up and experiment with its applications to better protect their clients and capture any upside… It takes guts to zig when others zag.”

When artists and management don’t manage to stay on top of such things, it could become too late.

Lawsuits against AI companies have been springing up throughout the year, be it the Author’s Guild launching a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI - the creator of ChatGPT- or Universal Music Group (UMG) suing Anthropic AI, both over creative copyright infringement.

Leading by example, Grimes is showing the industry what is possible when artists both own their data and control the rights to it.

“Owning your masters and publishing is only good if you know what to do with it,” said Daouda. “I don’t know if there is a perfect artist to do such a move. Grimes felt that it was important to experiment and see what’s possible.”

“I think every artist who is open to taking risks and curious about how technology can be a benefit to their career is the perfect for doing this, so I’m sure there are a lot of them.”

Many industry insiders who have wrapped their heads around the possibilities AI can present to artists and are trying to proactively find ways to reap the benefits without losing sovereignty have touted the technology as a “creative amplifier” of sorts.

Slip.stream said when artists are proactive with their rights and content shows that “AI is not about replacing humans with robots, but establishing new norms and structures for artistic collaboration that were unavailable to the masses before CreateSafe and Grimes.”

“To give anyone in the world the ability to collaborate with their favorite artist, opens up groundbreaking possibilities for creative output and fan engagement.”

Grimes herself posted a similar sentiment on X, formerly known as Twitter, a few days after the announcement of her collaboration with Slip.stream:

Basically now is the time to transition from being competitive to being collaborative
— GrimesAI (@GRIMES_V1) October 27, 2023

Daouda ended by saying that he believes what is happening with AI is even bigger than samples and collaborations.

“Generative AI or computational creativity makes it possible for people to go from idea to distribution in minutes, maybe even seconds,” he said.

“Whether that’s a good or bad thing is subjective, but what is objective is that now a lot of people can do it and it opens up modes of expression that ultimately could lead to a certain type of healing that many people can participate in. Music is healing and when we can participate in it that’s powerful.”

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Universal Music Group sues Anthropic AI over copyright infringement

October 19, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Artists

Universal Music Group, Concord Publishing and ABKCO Music & Records alleged that Anthropic “unlawfully” copied and disseminated “vast amounts of copyrighted works” from the publishers.

Universal Music Group (UMG), Concord Publishing and ABKCO Music & Records have filed a lawsuit against the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic on accusations of the latter committing copyright infringement in training its AI chatbot Claude.

The lawsuit was filed on Oct. 18 and claims that Anthropic “unlawfully” copied and disseminated “vast amounts of copyrighted works - including the lyrics to myriad musical compositions” that are under the ownership or control of the publishers.

It called Anthropic’s use of the works “widespread and systematic infringement” and said the defendant cannot reproduce, distribute and display copyrighted works to build a business without the proper rights.

“This foundational rule of copyright law dates all the way back to the Statute of Anne in 1710, and it has been applied time and time again to numerous infringing technological developments in the centuries since. That principle does not fall away simply because a company adorns its infringement with the words “AI.”

The lawsuit claims that Claude can generate identical or nearly identical copies of songs such as “What a Wonderful World,” “Gimme Shelter,” “American Pie,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Every Breath You Take” and at least 500 more.

In this case, the publishers provided examples of Claude being able to deliver an almost word for word replication of UMG’s song “I will survive” by Gloria Gaynor.

The plaintiffs have asked the court to order that the alleged infringement is put to an end, along with monetary damages.

This case joins the many popping up against major AI developers on the grounds of copyright infringement.

OpenAI, the developer of AI chatbot ChatGPT, has been sued for similar reasons by the Author’s Guild. Meta is currently facing a lawsuit by author Sarah Silverman and others for copyright issues. Google is involved in a lawsuit regarding its data scraping policy for AI training purposes.

As far as the music industry’s involvement is concerned, UMG has been vigilant about protecting its catalogue and the rights of its artists from AI-related copyright violations. On Oct. 18 it entered into a strategic partnership with BandLab Technologies focusing on ethical AI usage to protect artist and songwriter rights.

Over the summer, UMG and Google were reportedly in talks to create a tool that would allow for the creation of AI tracks using artists’ likenesses in a legal way.

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Universal Music Group enters partnership to protect artists’ rights against AI violations

October 18, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Artists

The new partnership between Universal Music Group and BandLab Technologies focuses on ethical AI usage to protect artist and songwriter rights.

Universal Music Group (UMG) announced a new partnership with social music creation platform BandLab Technologies on Oct. 18 to promote responsible practices with artificial intelligence (AI) in the industry.

The partnership says its focus is on the “ethical use of AI,” with one of the main goals being to protect the rights of artists and songwriters.

Michael Nash, the executive vice president and the chief digital officer of UMG, added that:

“This is more important than ever right now as AI assumes an increasingly prominent place in the evolution of music creation tools.”

Nash commented that along with protecting artists' rights, the two plan to create responsible approaches to using AI in creative processes to “champion human creativity and culture.”

A similar sentiment was expressed by the CEO of the Recording Academy, the institution behind the Grammy Awards, in an interview with Cointelegraph when he said AI could be an “amplifier” of human creativity.

This is not the first time UMG has taken on AI-related issues. In August, UMG and Google were reportedly in talks over ways to combat AI deep fakes through the development of a new tool that would allow for the creation of AI tracks using artists’ likenesses in a legal way.

Shortly before UMG and Google began talking about taking AI copyright issues, YouTube released its own set of principles for working with the music industry on AI tech.

YouTube said it had been in talks with major music industry players such as UMG over how to develop the principles. One was the introduction to its new “Music AI Incubator.”

The struggle for copyright infringement matters between artists, musicians and creators regarding AI has even reached the courts. In August 2023, a United States judge denied copyright for AI art.

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Google requests dismissal of AI data scraping class-action suit

October 17, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Google argued in its motion to dismiss the claims that using publicly available information shared on the internet is not “stealing,” as claimed.

Big Tech player Google is seeking to dismiss a proposed class-action lawsuit that claims it’s violating the privacy and property rights of millions of internet users by scraping data to train its artificial intelligence models.

Google filed the motion on Oct. 17 in a California District Court, saying it’s necessary to use public data to train itsAI chatbots such as Bard. It argued the claims are based upon false premises that it is “stealing” the information that is publicly shared on the internet.

“Using publicly available information to learn is not stealing. Nor is it an invasion of privacy, conversion, negligence, unfair competition, or copyright infringement.”

Google said such a lawsuit would “take a sledgehammer not just to Google’s services but to the very idea of generative AI."

The suit was opened against Google in July by eight individuals claiming to represent “millions of class members” such as internet users and copyright holders.

They claim their privacy and property rights were violated under a Google privacy policy change a week before the suit was filed that allows data scraping for AI training purposes.

Google argued the complaint concerns “irrelevant conduct by third parties and doomsday predictions about AI.”

It said the complaint failed to address any core issues, particularly how the plaintiffs have been harmed by using their information.

This case is one of many that have been brought against tech giants that are developing and training AI systems. On Sept. 20, Meta refuted claims of copyright infringement during the training of its AI.

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The Author’s Guild launches class-action lawsuit against OpenAI

September 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

The Author’s Guild opened a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging misuse of copyrighted material in training of its AI models.

The Author’s Guild in the United States opened a class-action lawsuit against the Microsoft-backed OpenAI on Sept. 19 due to its alleged misuse of copyrighted material in the training of its artificial intelligence (AI) models.

According to court documents, the oldest and largest professional organization for writers in the U.S. is operating under the Copyright Act and seeking “redress” for what it calls “flagrant and harmful infringement” of registered copyrights in written works of fiction.

It goes on to argue that works were copied wholesale and without permission or “consideration” by feeding them into large language models (LLMs).

“These algorithms are at the heart of Defendants’ massive commercial enterprise. And at the heart of these algorithms is systematic theft on a mass scale.”

The Author’s Guild said it represents a class of professional fiction writers whose “works spring from their own minds and their creative literary expression.” It says, therefore, that since their livelihoods derive from these creative works, the LLMs “endanger” the ability of fiction writers to make a living.

It suggested that the AI models could’ve been trained via the public domain, or OpenAI could have paid a licensing fee for the usage of the copyrighted works.

“What Defendants could not do was evade the Copyright Act altogether to power their lucrative commercial endeavor, taking whatever datasets of relatively recent books they could get their hands on without authorization.”

On Sept. 11, the Guild posted an article on X about how authors can protect their work from AI web crawlers.

Did you know that you can block OpenAI's web crawler from accessing their website? We've gathered some practical tips for authors to utilize so that they may protect their work from AI. https://t.co/6PwAre6hFt
— The Authors Guild (@AuthorsGuild) September 11, 2023

Pinned to the top of its profile, the Author’s Guild has a link to its advocacy work in regards to AI technologies.

This filing from the Author’s Guild follows updates in a similar lawsuit against Meta and OpenAI and their respective AI models using copyrighted material in training.

Author Sarah Silverman and others opened the lawsuit in July; however, now both companies have asked judges to dismiss the claims.

In August, the U.S. Copyright Office issued a notice of inquiry on AI, seeking public comment on topics related to AI content production and how it should be handled by policymakers when AI content mimics that which is made by human creators.

Prior to the inquiry, U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell ruled that artwork created solely by AI is not eligible for copyright protection.

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Water & Music’s Cherie Hu says Web3 and AI will revolutionize creativity: The Agenda

September 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Water & Music founder Cherie Hu explains how technology is evolving the music industry — but is it to the benefit of musicians?

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but for musicians, it’s often the launchpad of creativity and innovation. 2023 saw the rapid growth of OpenAI’s powerful ChatGPT artificial intelligence tool, and technologies like Midjourney and Dall-E have provided content creators the ability to literally become a one-man band — or a one-person production studio.

Keeping pace with the rapid evolution of technology and its impact on relevant industries can be a challenge for the average busy person, and one of the goals of Water & Music is to offer a more research-backed approach for music industry professionals to inspect, discuss and experiment with new technologies.

On Episode 19 of The Agenda podcast, hosts Ray Salmond and Jonathan DeYoung speak with Cherie Hu, the founder of Water & Music — “an independent newsletter and research community on a mission to make the music industry more innovative, cooperative, and transparent.”

Change is inevitable

When asked about what’s new in the music industry, Hu recognized that “the old music business very much was driven by a small group of gatekeepers,” and she suggested that the pandemic, new technology and perhaps even some of the ideology that backs the Web3 movement would eventually change this status quo.

“The pandemic, I think, woke a lot of people up,” Hu said. “I think it encouraged people to become a lot more proactive about speaking out about and advocating for changes that they wanted to see.” She added:

“A lot of the most critical, like deeply critical, conversations I’ve heard about streaming have come in the last three years just because, due to the pandemic, artists were put in a position where they had to essentially rely solely on digital sources of income to make ends meet without touring. And then they look at their streaming checks and are like, ‘This is this is nothing. I can’t live off of this.’ And so, there have been a lot more productive conversations around alternative models to monetizing music in a digital context. Web3, of course, has played a huge, huge role in this.”

Historically, breaking into the music industry meant artists either needed to know the right people to get picked up or be able to fund their endeavors in a way that created enough ripples to capture a wider audience. Hu believes that within the traditional music industry, “a lot of those mechanisms haven’t really changed for like the last 10, 20, even 30 years,” but she also acknowledges that new technologies have opened up new methods for creators to completely circumvent the conventional path to success.

Hu said:

“The way that culture is moving, especially if you look at apps like TikTok and the impact that ecosystem has on music culture and what music, what songs get big, it just moves so quickly. The unfortunate part of the music industry is that the financing element has not caught up to it.”

According to Hu, Water & Music aspires to take a more analytical approach to how the music business is evolving and being impacted by emerging technologies.

“So when we think about the new music business, we definitely focus on new technologies that enable people to participate in the music industry. You know, whether it’s creating music, marketing music, building communities around it, monetizing it in totally new ways. We’re interested in that entire stack.”

Web3 ideas and practices could become endemic to the music industry

Blockchain-based gaming, nonfungible token collections and other Web3 gimmicks were all the rage in 2020 and 2021 when the broader crypto space was in a bull market, but host Salmond wondered how relevant these tactics are today, particularly in the music industry.

Hu explained that with gaming, there are currently “more opportunities for building experiences than for monetizing them and building a business out of them. I would say that element is still missing and still challenging for a lot of indie artists.”

The infrastructure, time and overhead required to build out entire worlds is labor-intensive and not necessarily proven to be sticky, except for major gaming platforms like Roblox. Hu explained that a more pragmatic opportunity for artists might be sync licensing. According to her:

“Sync, or synchronization, licensing is the music industry term for licensing music for any kind of audio-visual multimedia experience, so like a film or a podcast or a game. And there are actually a lot of mobile games, especially, which I think is probably one of the more underexplored areas of music and gaming partnerships. You normally think of these huge games like League of Legends or Fortnite, but there are a lot of emerging mobile games, a lot especially built around music, that are looking for partnerships with the music industry.”

To hear more from Hu’s conversation with The Agenda — including her deeper explanation of how subscribers have benefited from the research published by Water & Music — listen to the full episode on Cointelegraph’s Podcasts page, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And don’t forget to check out Cointelegraph’s full lineup of other shows!

This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.

Change is inevitable

Web3 ideas and practices could become endemic to the music industry

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