Twitter is facing a lawsuit from the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), which is seeking more than $250 million in damages for alleged copyright infringement. The NMPA, representing artists such as Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, argues that Twitter profits from the use of unlicensed music in user-generated content. Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →