Past issues Subscribe

Feb 10 2023

🔵 Is that "it was just a joke!" excuse going to fly where AI vocal clones are concerned?

The latest news from the music and tech industries
Hi there -

AI continues to be the hot topic of the moment, with Google's recent attempt to show of its own ChatGPT competitor Bard going wrong and wiping $120BN off the company's value. It illustrates just how high the stakes are now.

On a slightly more parochial note, I think Music Ally raised a great point the other day regarding David Guetta's use of an AI-generated Eminem verse within a live performance. Specifically: is this OK? Or should Eminem's lawyers be getting on the case to shut any such use down.

Now granted, the latter option might feel a little heavy-handed, but cloning someone's speech patterns to say something about future rave (or potentially something much, much worse) is certainly a violation of some kind.

Or put another way: if deepfakes are definitely not OK without permission, should this kind of usage come under similar legal protection?

Guetta has stressed he made this all "as a joke", and to be fair his use is relatively light in tone, given what he perhaps could have had AI Eminem yelling. Irrespective though, it flags something that lawyers might well want to have a position on, at the very least.

And so the AI friction continues. I do still feel it has innumerable ways to be brilliant. I have even used it in today's Digest; see if you can spot where! For me, it can be incredibly practical if used with human oversight to improve output.

Where the issues remain is within permission. Perhaps in that regard it draws a parallel to the piracy issues at the turn of the century. When things could be copied to an unlimited extent, all manner of copyrighted works were threatened and the music industry was just one sector to take a serious beating as a consequence.

It's possible we might see similar impacts here with AI - if, and it's a big if, regulation fails to get on top of this all.

Have a great weekend,

D.

🎶 written whilst listening to a Spotify playlist replicating Kendall Roy's 40th birthday party music in the TV show Succession. If you've never watched the show, well, firstly, shame on you, and secondly, don't worry: this playlist works because it is legitimately brilliant, taking in anything from LCD Soundsystem to Spacemen 3 to Dizzy Rascal to Meat Beat Manifesto. Superb. Enjoy!
Stories from the Music Industry:
Spotify now lets you select which playlists you'd like to impact your recommendations less
The streaming service announced today that it’s launching a new “Exclude from your Taste Profile” feature that lets you keep selected playlists from heavily influencing your personalized recommendations. For context, your taste profile is Spotify’s interpretation of your music taste based on what you listen to and is used to inform your recommendations. The new feature lets you tell Spotify which playlists you’d like to impact your recommendations less to allow for a more tailored personalization experience.

👆🏻Hot take: good to see this feature finally landing, as there's no question one playlist is not the same as another in terms of one's usage of it and attributed value attached to it. 
Which rather begs the question: will Eminem (not to mention his lawyers) go nuts in a different way, even with Guetta’s follow-up tweet saying “obviously I won’t release this commercially”. He’s just played the track to an arena full of fans after all. Whether knowingly or unwittingly, Guetta has highlighted some of the most pressing and heated issues around creative AI technology: voice likeness rights (remember Jay-Z filing takedowns against his deepfakes?);  copyright (was the AI Guetta used trained on Eminem’s copyrighted lyrics?); and the pure politeness of asking permission.

👆🏻Hot take: a valid point is being made here. Is this OK? Should Eminem be taking action? Gut feeling is 'no' given it was a one-off etc, but even so - it all warrants consideration. 
Paris-headquartered music distribution and services company Believe reports that it surpassed the milestone of €1 billion in digital music sales (DMS) for 2022. Believe says that DMS is the revenue generated from its digital store partners and social media platforms before royalty payment to artists and labels. The company adds that DMS represents the recorded music digital sales of the artists supported by the Group, directly or through their labels.

👆🏻Hot take: Believe's ascent continues. I can't help but admire how far they've come. 
“I just feel like there’s others that are probably questioning their investments in this area, and we are investing in four new categories. We are going to raise the bar in our existing categories. I mean, we’ve got a lot going on,” Spence added.

👆🏻Hot take: very cocky words from Sonos, but not without good reason. All rumours do indeed suggest that at least one of the incumbents in the smart speaker space is haemorrhaging money and keen to exit. 
British companies with more than 250 employees – including a number of music organisations – have to publish their gender pay-gap figures, and Khan said it has been frustrating to see some of those gaps widening rather than narrowing in recent years. “All organisations need to do an internal review and look at their diversity, and the diversity in their leadership teams,” said Khan. “Having more women in the leadership, around the table, is going to bring more women’s perspectives and lived experiences into consideration. If there’s a lack of women in your rosters, then look at hiring more women A&Rs, or look at making that a dedicated target that you’re going to work on,” she continued.

👆🏻Hot take: I may be mistaken but it feels like only Music Ally covered this story. It warrants amplifying - preferably far beyond this humble Digest too. 
Stories from the Broader World of Tech:
TikTok adds new targeting and boosting features to its Promote advertising tool
The company is adding a new feature that allows advertisers to drive traffic back to their TikTok page to in order to show off a range of products or services. With this new Promote update, viewers will be presented with a call to action driving them directly to the advertisers TikTok profile. There’s also a new “more messages” Promote goal that allows small businesses who rely on interactions with customers to make their sales directly drive traffic to their TikTok inbox.

👆🏻Hot take: TikTok's path to being The New Facebook for advertising continues... Now it just has to avoid getting banned. 
About 10 percent of Alphabet's market value – some $120 billion – was wiped out this week after Google proudly presented Bard, its answer to Microsoft's next-gen AI offerings, and the system bungled a simple question. In a promotional video to show off Bard, a web search assistant to compete against Microsoft's ChatGPT-enhanced Bing, the software answered a science question incorrectly, sending Alphabet's share price down amid an overall lackluster launch by the Chocolate Factory.

👆🏻Hot take: proof if proof was needed of just how much these errors carry consequences. No doubt Google will get it right eventually, but right now Microsoft has very good reason to feel smug. 
Disney’s first quarter with CEO Bob Iger back in command isn’t looking so good. Disney announced its Q1 2023 earnings today, reporting a total of 161.8 million Disney+ global subscribers, a decrease of 2.4 million subs from 164.2 million in the previous quarter. This is the streamer’s first subscriber loss since launching in 2019. The drop in Disney+ subscribers was mainly driven by a decrease in Disney+ Hotstar subscribers. The international streaming service, available in India and parts of Southeast Asia, saw a decline of 3.8 million subscribers, down from 61.3 million subs in the previous quarter.

👆🏻Hot take: Disney is the latest to feel the pinch as the streaming wars intensify. Curious to see what the company's next move will be. 
Other Reads I've Enjoyed Lately:
Data Free Disney
Each day, 50,000 people enter Disney’s theme parks, along with their phones, purchases, locations, and photos. What happens to the data?

👆🏻Hot take: fascinating read highlighting how companies like Disney use convenience as a lure to entice people to give away their data, making it inconvenient to go without.

Stars like Tom Hanks and Harrison Ford are being rendered younger digitally but voices in the industry express concern about where we might be heading

👆🏻Hot take: a good look at both the pros and cons of AI's effect on movies - de-ageing, deepfakes and all.

Our constant need for entertainment has blurred the line between fiction and reality—on television, in American politics, and in our everyday lives.

👆🏻Hot take: a great read arguing that we are already living in the metaverse and the the distinction between fact and fiction has been obliterated. Compelling stuff. 
The latest from Motive Unknown on Twitter:
Missed an edition? Need a link to a previous Digest to share? Click here to check our archive of newsletters.

Previous Issues

Load More