AI Voice Cloning Danger

Generative AI has presented the music industry with new challenges. You've probably heard about the AI-generated song featuring cloned vocals of Drake and The Weeknd. It went viral, but was taken down because Universal Music Group (UMG) claimed copyright violations. (I'm not sure if copyright laws actually apply here.) Continue Reading →

Grimes Offers 50% Music Royalties to AI

Canadian musician Grimes has expressed her willingness to share 50% of the royalties from her upcoming album with an AI program known as "WarNymph." The AI was created by Grimes's ex-partner, Elon Musk, and features on her album, producing some of the music. Continue Reading →

The Music Business Will Never Learn

It seems history is repeating itself. Remember when the RIAA thought it was a great idea to sue music lovers who used Napster? Well, now they are at it again. It may be a synthetic singer, but it's an old song. Here's the refrain. Continue Reading →

ASCAP for AI?

As I think about the issues that artists and creators of every kind are having with the way their works are being used to train AI, I'm wondering if a version of "ASCAP for AI" or "ASCAP for the web" is something we should be thinking about. Continue Reading →

Bigger than ChatGPT, In its Own Way

My Sunday essay was about Generative Synthetic Media. If you don't know what that is, have a quick look at the post, then go play around (pun intended) with some examples you'll find in this Google Research paper: MusicLM: Generating Music From Text. Continue Reading →

Music Streaming Royalties Set Through 2027

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and the Digital Media Association announced a settlement with streaming services for certain mechanical streaming rates in the U.S. for the years 2023-2027: 15.35%. Continue Reading →

An NFT band that literally can never play

While reading this story on vice.com about Universal Music Group (UMG) -- the powerhouse label that represents Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Jay-Z -- forming an NFT band made up of cartoon ape JPEGs “owned” by some guy, it has become clear that the NFT hype bubble has inflated beyond anyone's wildest expectations. Continue Reading →

A Great Day to Learn Something New

Space
As out of control as everything feels today, we do have control over one thing: how we spend our time. Time is a currency. So much so that we call the use of it “spending” time. Today, while some are forced to put themselves in harm’s way to do what needs to be done, many of us will have the shared experience of being alone. How will you “invest” your alone time? Here are a few ideas. Continue Reading →