On April 2, local time, the Artist Rights Coalition, which is supported by about 200 music artists, including Billie Eilish, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Jon Bon Jovi and Norah Jones, released an open letter calling on digital music developers to "stop using artificial intelligence to infringe on and disparage the rights of human artists." ”。
Main content of the open letter - Artist Copyright Alliance website
The open letter warns about the use of musical works in which AI developers train and produce AI "mimics" without permission or use AI "voices" to dilute royalty obligations. Their involvement stems from the growing attention of the legal and pop music sectors as a threat to creators posed by artificial intelligence, and its value to tech giants.
"In the world of streaming, professional musicians are already struggling to make ends meet, and now they have the added burden of competing with the noise generated by the massive amount of artificial intelligence. Jen Jacobsen, ARA's executive director, said in a statement, "The unethical use of generative AI to replace human artists will devalue the entire music ecosystem — and that's true for artists and fans alike." ”
The advent of artificial intelligence has enabled developers to use sound samples to transform songs they produce into popular songs that sound like human artists who neither know the song's creation nor give permission to create the song. Other signatories to the open letter include Sam Smith, Pearl Jam, Kate Hudson, and others.
"One thing is without a doubt: we believe that AI, when used correctly, has enormous potential to boost human creativity and bring new and exciting experiences to music fans around the world. Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are using AI to undermine creativity to the detriment of artists, songwriters, musicians, and copyright holders. The artist's open letter reads.
In October 2023, three large music publishers — Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group, and ABKCO — sued Anthropic, an artificial intelligence company that builds AI models by collecting information and text from the internet and trains the models to produce outputs based on internet resources. The music publisher accused Anthropic of infringing copyrighted lyrics.
"We must prevent AI from being predatorily used to steal the voices and likenesses of professional artists, infringe on the rights of creators, and disrupt the music ecosystem. We call on all digital music platforms and music-based services to pledge not to develop or deploy AI music generation technologies, content, or tools that undermine or replace the human art of songwriters and artists, or deny fair compensation for our work. The letter continues.
Their initiative comes as U.S. politicians and regulators are considering establishing protections to ensure the proper use of AI in music, while providing compensation to artists.
The full list of the artists behind the event and their open letter are available on the Coalition for Artists' Rights website. （https://artistrightsnow.medium.com/200-artists-urge-tech-platforms-stop-devaluing-music-559fb109bbac）
Source: The Paper
Editor: Sharon