AI and the music business

[Ninshub]

Speaking of the Beatles and AI,

McCartney just announced the "last Beatles song" will be put out this year, with the help of AI.

https://www.aol.com/entertainment/beatle...12926.html

Although AI in this case is not used to create a voice but simply separate Lennon's actual voice from the badly-recorded background instrumentation on a solo demo.

[Ninshub]

This is funny. It's almost certain among Beatles fan the upcoming "new Beatles song" will be "Now and Then", the third song the three surviving Beatles (the Threetles) worked on in 1994-95 for the Anthology project, based again on a Lennon solo demo. (George vetoed it because he didn't think if was good enough.)

Now youtubers are creating their own AI version of it. It'll be funny to compare the results with what actually comes out!

[Laird]

I'm curious to know the reaction of @Sciborg_S_Patel - as a K-pop fan and AI skeptic - to this Reuters article just published by the ABC:

BTS's K-pop label HYBE uses AI to record tracks in multiple languages

The K-pop label behind hit boy band BTS has broken music barriers again, using artificial intelligence to meld a South Korean singer's voice with the native speakers of five other languages.

The artificial intelligence (AI) technology enabled South Korea's largest music label, HYBE, to release a track by singer MIDNATT in six languages.

The song, released in May, was produced in Korean, English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese despite the singer's limited language skills.

I'm curious to know the reaction of @Sciborg_S_Patel - as a K-pop fan and AI skeptic - to this Reuters article just published by the ABC:

BTS's K-pop label HYBE uses AI to record tracks in multiple languages

Heh terrible idea artistically but I'm sure it will be done by other companies as well unless the brand reputation sinks.

Heh terrible idea artistically but I'm sure it will be done by other companies as well unless the brand reputation sinks.

Much modern music is a terrible idea artistically, created by producers rather than artists and musicians and performed by the best looking or those with "attitude" (i.e. arrogance)  I suppose AI is just another step in the same direction.  It will become big because the punters have no critical faculties!

[Laird]

McCartney just announced the "last Beatles song" will be put out this year, with the help of AI.

It's now here, as reported by the ABC a few days ago:

The Beatles release final ever song Now and Then. Is it any good?

[Ninshub]

Yeah I saw that when it came out, Laird! I happened to hear it 20 minutes after it was published!

[Laird]

Major Record Labels Sue AI Music Generators

By Ashley Carman and Rachel Metz / Bloomberg in Time on June 24, 2024

The Recording Industry Association of America said it filed twin lawsuits Monday against Suno AI and Uncharted Labs Inc., the developer of Udio AI, on behalf of Universal Music Group NV, Warner Music Group Corp. and Sony Music Entertainment. The complaints allege the companies are unlawfully training their AI models on massive amounts of copyrighted sound recordings.

Ed Newton-Rex, CEO of nonprofit organization Fairly Trained, which provides certification for AI models trained on licensed data, said he found it easy to generate a slew of tunes using both companies’ software that sound very much like artists such as Queen, Abba, Oasis, Blink-182 and Ed Sheeran.

In Monday’s lawsuits, the RIAA claims authentic producer tags appear on some of the music coming out of Suno and Udio, and that people who use the services have generated sounds very similar to numerous artist-made songs, including The Temptations’ My Girl, Green Day’s American Idiot and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas. They have also produced vocals that are indistinguishable from famous recording artists, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, according to the RIAA.

Major Record Labels Sue AI Music Generators

By Ashley Carman and Rachel Metz / Bloomberg in Time on June 24, 2024

Some of the world's biggest recording label companies are now suing for copyright infringement. Being big companies maybe they will have enough high-priced lawyers to prevail in court. This is along with a wave of similar lawsuits brought by news organizations, authors, and visual artists. I can see this issue going all the way to the US Supreme Court. 

It seems to me the what's at stake is the livelihoods of an entire segment of the working population - the creative performing artists, composers, authors, and visual artists. Generative AI threatens to make them mostly extinct, because AI can make good imitations much more cheaply. Most or at least very many consumers apparently don't care. I wonder how long this can go on before the lack of true creative innovation becomes too obvious to ignore.

Some of the world's biggest recording label companies are now suing for copyright infringement. Being big companies maybe they will have enough high-priced lawyers to prevail in court. This is along with a wave of similar lawsuits brought by news organizations, authors, and visual artists. I can see this issue going all the way to the US Supreme Court. 

It seems to me the what's at stake is the livelihoods of an entire segment of the working population - the creative performing artists, composers, authors, and visual artists. Generative AI threatens to make them mostly extinct, because AI can make good imitations much more cheaply. Most or at least very many consumers apparently don't care. I wonder how long this can go on before the lack of true creative innovation becomes too obvious to ignore.

Art Schools are already closing down sadly, and I think this will speed up the decline of human art.

AI is already boring, and if produced by a human artist would be seen as overdone.

It's hard to say what will happen when human creative work is even more undervalued, but I can't imagine it being good for civilization in the long term.