Music labels sue AI song generators - copyright infringement

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 25 Jun 2024 6:30 am

Hasn't every composer exploited the works of Chuck Berry? I know the beatles did.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 25 Jun 2024 6:51 am

Yeah, I agree. All music is derivative... built on preexisting music. I think AI is here to stay, and the courts will eventually find some way to sort out any copyright issues.

Brooks Montgomery · Post by **Brooks Montgomery** » 25 Jun 2024 7:15 am

Being a bit of a troglodyte, does AI go out there and record from existing works, and then modify and reproduce, or does it figure out the progressions, sounds, moods, then recreate….or both?

Will note progressions of x-amount need to be copyrighted? Is the planet doomed to a take over of supercharged drum machines and karaoke computers?

R2D2 club deejays?

Maybe there will be a good James Cameron movie in the works like the Terminator.
Rebel groups of musicians, armed with viruses on thumbdrives, battling the new AI musicverse. To the death. A child prodigy is born and needs to be protected (maybe Billy Strings

). Ahh-nold Shwartsemstrummer’s last film?

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 25 Jun 2024 8:48 am

From what I understand, a user can input vocal performances of a certain singer and AI will generate realistic vocals of that singer (singing new lyrics). So a crappy singer/songwriter can create awesome sounding vocals for his song using the vocal samples of some other singer.

And I think a user can choose to generate a song "in the style of" some famous performer or band.
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David DeLoach posted the following AI generated song a couple of weeks ago:

This song was written and produced 100% by AI. No vocalists. No musicians. No songwriter. No studio.

-----> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP6VTHSJ4is

Bill McCloskey · Post by **Bill McCloskey** » 25 Jun 2024 8:55 am

Like any tool, there are positive and negative uses we will all have to get used to. On the plus side, AI allowed Randy Travis to release a new song which would have been impossible otherwise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM2UzZ4TVGw&t=332s

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 25 Jun 2024 11:44 am

That's an awesome video, Bill. It shows one of the positive uses of AI. Hopefully the good will outweigh the bad. There will always be bad actors out there using AI to scam people with fake ads. On the other hand, AI will have very positive uses in science and medicine.

Donny Hinson · Post by **Donny Hinson** » 25 Jun 2024 4:35 pm

The new Randy Travis song sounds good, but when the harmony parts come in, you know something's not right. To me, it just sounds fake and artificial. And the Rick Beato videos about AI mention the same thing; that his daughter can hear the "fakeness" in an AI track immediately, but Rick (who has far more music knowledge and experience) cannot!

I think this is also the reason that pre-1975 music sounds so much more "real" and pleasing. It was about that time that the artists took a back seat to the engineers when it came to creating a record. The engineers were no longer merely recording the artist's song - they became the creators of the sound, and the artists merely supplied the basics, the "raw material", as it were.

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 25 Jun 2024 5:42 pm

The engineers were no longer merely recording the artist's song - they became the creators of the sound, and the artists merely supplied the basics, the "raw material", as it were.

Very true. I'm reminded of a session I did where the engineer and the producer "micro-managed" every note I played... and when we were done the engineer said to me "I think I have enough to work with". And he did! He chopped up my solo and pasted the sections together... it sounded like my bar jumped from fret 3 to fret 15 in a nano second, very unnatural sounding.

Fred Treece · Post by **Fred Treece** » 25 Jun 2024 7:03 pm

Doug Beaumier wrote:
The engineers were no longer merely recording the artist's song - they became the creators of the sound, and the artists merely supplied the basics, the "raw material", as it were.
Very true. I'm reminded of a session I did where the engineer and the producer "micro-managed" every note I played... and when we were done the engineer said to me "I think I have enough to work with". And he did! He chopped up my solo and pasted the sections together... it sounded like my bar jumped from fret 3 to fret 15 in a nano second, very unnatural sounding.

I thought this only happened to second-rate players like me. Now I don’t feel like such a chump! My guy wouldn’t even let me use a volume pedal. “I’ll take care of the dynamics”.

It’s not AI, but it’s not real either. And it sounds ridiculous.

Mike R Johnson · Post by **Mike R Johnson** » 27 Jul 2024 6:19 am

All music is derivative, as somebody mentioned here. And I agree. We won't be able to stop AI from doing what it does. Hopefully, AI will get better and do just good things. Like using it in medicine and other important fields.

Here's a book I read recently about AI litigation: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D9S84615, written by Oberheiden P.C., a law firm. Scary to think how tough is the law field and how many loopholes there can be. So who knows what will happen. We'll have to wait and see.

John Larson · Post by **John Larson** » 27 Jul 2024 9:38 am

Bill McCloskey wrote:Hasn't every composer exploited the works of Chuck Berry? I know the beatles did.

It's more of the ease at which copying is able to be done with AI. Which really is the spirit of the law of copyright laws that's why sampling got people in hot water in the 90s.

Whatever it takes to rid the world of this anti creative abomination of artificial nonintelligence.

Fred Treece · Post by **Fred Treece** » 28 Jul 2024 9:27 am

If an AI production becomes a big hit, who goes on tour and performs the song live?

The Beatles (John Lennon, specifically) were sued by Chuck Berry’s management for plagiarizing “You Can’t Catch Me”, so hopefully the suit against the AI production companies sets the same type of standard for non-human exploitatation and manipulation of copyrighted music.
You just have to catch them…

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 28 Jul 2024 10:16 am

I think the most common use of AI in music now is generating rhythms and chords "in the style of__________". The vocals are usually an actual singer, although AI can generate vocals as well. I can image a singer on tour, on stage with a bunch of dancers, and no band... just singing to the tracks. I think a lot of fans today would be fine with that (sadly). Consider DJ concerts...thousands of people buying tickets to see/hear a DJ twist some knobs, making electronic music.

Fred Treece · Post by **Fred Treece** » 28 Jul 2024 11:55 am

Right, Doug. This AI business is a direct descendant of synthesizers of the 70’s and midi sequencing of the 80’s and 90’s. Heck, we promote the use of digital backing track devices and apps right here on the forum, and more than a few of us probably perform live with them.

Glenn Suchan · Post by **Glenn Suchan** » 9 Aug 2024 2:44 pm

A friend of mine told me about a YouTube subscriber, "JWO HonkyTonk" that was posting what sounds like classic 1960's honky tonk country music. The subscriber has numerous YouTubes. The first ones I listened to sounded very familiar, but I couldn't tell exactly who the artists were.

The other day, that same friend suggested that they might be A.I. generated. With that in mind I re-listened to one in particular that sounds like it was generated using the sampled voice of Loretta Lynn and sampled artistry of Hal Rugg on steel. See if you don't agree:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9n10SlEfks

It might be fun for Forumites to listen to some of the other 'artists' on the "JWO Honky Tonk" YouTube channel and guess which famous country Artist(s) were stolen from and used to generate pseudo-country 'stars'.

The bottom line is, if this is A.I. generation, then the artists, and their associated record companies are being exploited by an anonymous entity who is also trying to make money from that exploitation by requesting donations to his/her Patreon account.

Keep on pickin'!
Glenn

Don R Brown · Post by **Don R Brown** » 9 Aug 2024 4:23 pm

John Larson wrote:.

Whatever it takes to rid the world of this anti creative abomination of artificial nonintelligence.

I'd say the genie is out of the bottle, whether we like it or not. How could we "rid the world" of it when people are already making it, using it and accepting it whether WE agree or not? As the saying goes, "That which has been seen cannot be un-seen".

Doug Beaumier · Post by **Doug Beaumier** » 9 Aug 2024 5:29 pm

Glenn, I agree that the songs on that website sound like they are AI generated… kind of robotic and unnatural sounding, in my opinion. It reminds me of video game music.

Andy Jones · Post by **Andy Jones** » 10 Aug 2024 1:19 pm

I have listened to many of those songs on that channel and they are pretty good.However,they sound too polished and automatic to me.The singing has a little rasp to it and it just doesn't sound human to me.I don't have the ear for music like some of you,but I can tell something isn't just right.

The photos of the artists are too perfect,also.The outfits are flawless and the singers'faces and hair are fake looking to me.You may think otherwise,but I am dubious of this whole thing.