This week, we witnessed a pivotal moment in the tense relationship between the music industry and AI technology when the record labels owned by the three global music giants – Sony Music Group, Universal Music Group, and Warner Music Group – filed a lawsuit against AI developers Suno and Udio for their alleged unauthorized use of copyrighted music to train their AI models.
It was a clear signal – if one was still needed – that the music industry intends to fight tooth and nail for its rights against companies attempting to replace human talent with AI tools trained without permission on the vast corpus of human music protected by copyright.
In addition to Suno and Udio, many AI developers are beginning to get the message. OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed developer of ChatGPT – whose late 2022 launch sparked the AI frenzy we see today – has been in talks with news organizations such as CNN, Fox News, and Time to obtain licenses to use their content for AI training purposes.
Likely not coincidentally, these discussions followed The New York Times' lawsuit against OpenAI for allegedly using its articles to train the large language models behind ChatGPT.
In April, the Financial Times allowed its content to be used to train OpenAI's models as part of an agreement requiring ChatGPT to cite FT whenever the newspaper's content is used in user responses.
Now, the Financial Times reports that Google's YouTube is in talks with the three major music labels – Sony, Universal, and Warner – to obtain a license to use their music to train AI tools that will clone the music of popular artists.
Citing "three people familiar with the matter," FT reported that YouTube wants to offer upfront payments in the form of lump sums to secure the rights to specific artists' music – with the permission of the artists themselves.
The idea is to encourage more artists to allow their work to be used to create AI-powered music tools. YouTube wants "dozens" of artists to participate, two of the people familiar with the matter told FT.
It is unclear how receptive artists are to the idea, and the notion that labels would sell artists' rights without their permission seems out of the question. However, what is known is that two of the majors – Universal and Warner – last year partnered with YouTube to jointly develop AI tools with artist participation.
(Notably, Sony did not join that effort. The company again stood apart last month by sending letters to some 700 AI developers, informing them that Sony "opts out" by default from the use of its content in AI training.)
According to FT reports, YouTube's initial efforts to work with artists on AI tools appear to have fallen short of expectations: only 10 artists agreed to participate in training Dream Track, a tool designed to bring AI-generated music to YouTube Shorts, the platform's TikTok competitor.
YouTube is now moving beyond Dream Track and is working on new tools – but once again, with the goal of integrating them into YouTube Shorts, FT reports.
Record labels are cautiously optimistic about AI technology and are working to find ways to monetize their copyrighted content in AI tool development and create tools to enhance their artists' creative processes.
"SOME PLATFORMS USE AI TO SABOTAGE CREATIVITY AND UNDERMINE ARTISTS, SONGWRITERS, MUSICIANS, AND RIGHTS HOLDERS."
– ARTIST RIGHTS ALLIANCE
However, artists themselves appear to be more cautious than optimistic about AI. While a few, like Grimes and 3LAU, have fully embraced the technology, a much larger number express concerns about what the technology could mean for human creativity in the future.
More than 200 artists and music groups – including Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder, and Smokey Robinson – signed a letter in April calling on AI developers to "stop using artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe on and devalue human artists' rights."
The letter, organized by the Artist Rights Alliance, stated that "when used responsibly, AI has great potential to enhance human creativity," but that "some platforms use AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians, and rights holders."
It's hard to know where YouTube's new tools – seemingly designed to clone artists' work – would fall in this category.
"The industry is grappling with this. Technically, companies have the copyrights, but we need to think about how to play the game," an unnamed executive from a major record label told FT. "We don’t want to be seen as Luddites."