More than 200 music artists sign open letter, including stars like Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, J Balvin, Jon Bon Jovi and more Warning against “predatory use of AI” in the music industry.
On Monday, the artists' group released the letter, acknowledging AI's “huge potential to enhance human creativity” but also saying that powerful companies could use their own works to train artificial intelligence models and ultimately warned that it could completely replace human musicians.
“We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal the voices and likenesses of professional artists, violate the rights of creators, and disrupt the music ecosystem,” the letter says.
We also require technology companies, AI developers, and digital music services not to develop or use AI-enabled technologies that undermine songwriters and artists or prevent them from getting fair compensation for their art. I'm asking you to make a pledge.
While the letter does make a point, things get a little more complicated when it comes to forcing companies to comply, said the president and CEO of SoundExchange, a music technology organization that collects and distributes royalties for digital performances. (CEO) Michael Huppe said. Huppe is also a professor of music law at Georgetown University.
Streaming platforms and technology companies “cannot ignore these kinds of concerns from the creative community,” he told CNBC Make It. “But unfortunately, if they feel they can do something without having the proper licenses or getting the proper permits, some people will do it and some people won't do it.”
ChatGPT creator OpenAI revealed in a March 29 blog post the development of a new AI tool that can generate a realistic clone of someone's voice from a 15-second audio clip. The company noted the risks posed by voice cloning technology and said the tool is not available to the public at this time.
“We believe that the broader deployment of synthetic voice technology will include a voice authentication experience that verifies that the original speaker knowingly added their voice to a service, as well as a voice authentication experience that verifies that the original speaker is intentionally adding their voice to a service, as well as the creation of overly inappropriate voices. “We believe it should be accompanied by a list of banned voices to detect and prevent, similar to famous people,” OpenAI said in a blog post.
U.S. federal copyright law provides artists and music labels with protection against blatant copying of their works, but AI that only imitates the artist's voice or general sound but does not directly copy lyrics It can be difficult to apply these laws to generated content or music.
Huppe said that the laws currently in place could be updated to keep up with the rapid development of AI technology and prevent the irresponsible use of AI technology.
“An artist's sound is their brand,” he says. “If you use someone’s voice or likeness without permission, you are stealing that person’s brand for commercial gain, and that goes beyond copyright law.”
Tennessee, known as a music and entertainment capital, recently became the first state to pass legislation protecting musicians from AI voice cloning technology. The Portrait Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act, which goes into effect on July 1, expands existing state laws that protect artists' names, images and likenesses from misuse to include their voices. .
AI innovation isn't entirely bad news for the music industry, says Hupe. If used responsibly, AI technology has the potential for collaboration.
One way to do that, he says, is to get artists' consent to use their voices in AI-generated music, compensate them appropriately, and give them proper credit.
“Many artists and creators will be happy to collaborate with AI as long as there is consent, credit, and compensation,” he says. “There's a way to make this work.”
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