Spotify has announced it is teaming up with the world\u2019s biggest music companies to develop \u201cresponsible\u201d artificial intelligence products that respect artists\u2019 copyright.<\/p>\n
The market-leading music streamer is collaborating with the Sony, Universal and Warner music groups \u2013 whose combined rosters feature artists including Beyonc\u00e9, Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift \u2013 to create new AI features.<\/p>\n
Spotify did not give details of what the new products would entail, but the company said artists would not be forced to participate, and their copyright would not be violated.<\/p>\n
In a blogpost announcing the agreement, Spotify referred pointedly to a move-fast-and-break-things approach to copyright in some parts of the tech industry. The tension between the music industry and some tech firms has already led to three major labels suing AI companies whose tools create music from user prompts.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome voices in the tech industry believe copyright should be abolished,\u201d said Spotify. \u201cWe don\u2019t. Musicians\u2019 rights matter. Copyright is essential. If the music industry doesn\u2019t lead in this moment, AI-powered innovation will happen elsewhere, without rights, consent, or compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue of copyright \u2013 a legal right that prevents others from using your work without permission \u2013 has become a battleground between the creative industries and the tech sector<\/a>, which has been using publicly available, copyright-protected data to build artificial intelligence tools such as OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT and Anthropic\u2019s Claude<\/a>.<\/p>\n The three music majors are suing two AI music startups<\/a>, Udio and Suno, for alleged copyright infringement, amid similar lawsuits in other areas of the media and creative world. Both Udio and Suno have said their technology is designed to generate new musical output and does not reproduce specific artists\u2019 work.<\/p>\n The head of Universal Music Group, Sir Lucian Grainge, wrote in a memo to staff this week that Universal would seek an artist\u2019s consent before licensing use of their voice or existing songs to an AI company.<\/p>\n One of the most notorious musical deepfakes was published in 2023. Heart on My Sleeve, a song featuring AI-made vocals purporting to be Drake and the Weeknd<\/a>, was pulled from streaming services after Universal, which represented both artists, criticised the song for \u201cinfringing content created with generative AI\u201d.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Spotify, which has 276 million paying subscribers, said it had begun building a state-of-the-art generative AI research lab to create \u201cbreakthrough experiences\u201d for fans and artists. The Stockholm-based company said the products would create new revenue streams for artists and songwriters, ensuring they are \u201cproperly compensated for uses of their work and transparently credited for their contributions\u201d.<\/p>\n Spotify is also partnering with Merlin, a digital rights company for independent record labels, and Believe, a French digital music label, as part of the AI collaboration. Spotify already uses AI to create playlists and a personalised DJ.<\/p>\n The heads of the three majors welcomed the agreement, with the chair of Sony Music Group, Rob Stringer, saying that there must \u201cdirect licensing\u201d of artists\u2019 work before a new product is launched. Universal\u2019s Grainge said he wanted a \u201cthriving commercial landscape\u201d in which the music industry and tech companies could flourish. The head of Warner Music Group, Robert Kyncl, expressed approval for Spotify\u2019s \u201cthoughtful AI guardrails\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotify has announced it is teaming up with the world\u2019s biggest music companies to develop \u201cresponsible\u201d artificial intelligence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220305,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-220304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}