Anyone concerned about getting ripped-off by AI companies?

[Spirit Groove]

I'm working on my personal music and have an 'album' of material, actually quite a lot more than one.

I'm concerned that if I decide to publish on a public forum that my content will just be vacuumed up by some AI. Is making money from your music even a plausible idea these days?
In this age of content 'creators' is it realistic to try to build a following with quality music or is the short-attention-span dopamine hit algorithmic money machine going to drown out everything else?

Should I just keep my music to myself?

 

[Louie]

I hear ya’, and not sure which of the 5 stages of grief I’m in over AI scraping, accept I know I haven’t yet reached “acceptance”. And not sure I’ll get there because that would somehow feel like "Soylent Green of the Soul".

 

[Nekujak]

Concerns over AI scraping should be put into proper perspective.

AI generates a piece of music by combining multiple musical snippets from multiple sources. Depending on the resulting piece, it's sometimes possible to identify one or more of those sources, but more often than not, the sources are blended together into an arrangement that obscures their original identity. AI doesn't simply reuse existing music in its entirety, it extracts selected elements. So in the end, does it really make a life-changing difference if AI lifts a snippet of a bass line or drum beat from one of our songs or a Beatles song?

There are millions (perhaps even billions) of hours of recorded music in existence that AI has access to, so any contribution we make to that pool is pretty much insignificant, which means the odds of AI actually leveraging one of our songs is pretty slim.

And if AI does happen to leverage elements from one of our songs, what's the worst that can happen? AI-generated music can't be copyrighted, so we still own our composition. And it's not like the AI-generated song is going to steal any substantial revenue from us - no one makes significant money anymore from selling music. Streaming revenues are fractions of a penny, MP3s sell for less than $1, and all reputable music publishers/licensors refuse to accept AI-generated music, so we can still try to make money with our songs.

IMHO, the bigger threat is from other humans. Someone could hear one of our songs and write/record their own slightly modified version, effectively stealing our music. And if one of our songs should become popular and successful, it's very likely these days that we'll get sued by someone who claims we stole their music, even if it isn't true. That pretty much happens like clockwork nowadays - get a #1 hit, get sued.

Over 100,000 new songs are uploaded to Spotify every day - that's more than 3 million new songs every month! Just pause for a second and think about that staggering number - - - - nearly 40 MILLION new songs are added to Spotify every year. Amid that deluge of new music, it's virtually impossible for any one song to get significant attention, from humans or AI. So holding back a song for fear of AI scraping is like choosing to not fly a plane for fear crashing. Both are possible, but the chances are infintesimal - and at least with music, the result is far less catastrophic.

 

[Spirit Groove]

Concerns over AI scraping should be put into proper perspective.

You're far more optimistic than I am.

 

[Nekujak]

You're far more optimistic than I am.

I wouldn't say I'm necessarily optimistic. I vehemently despise AI for encroaching on opportunities for us to earn money from our creative pursuits. But in terms of actual impact of AI leveraging bits of our music, I'd like to think I'm just being realistic.

AI already has access to unfathomable amounts of recorded music, that it leverages on a daily basis. One more drop in that bucket won't really make any appreciable difference.

I feel it's better to share your music with the world and bring joy to those who would listen to it, than horde it out of fear that AI might happen to use a snippet of it someday. Your music will endure. The countless pieces of AI-generated music that get spewed out every day are simply forgetten and replaced the next day.

 

[Louie]

Concerns over AI scraping should be put into proper perspective.

Outside the realm of physical reality (as in the sciences or engineering, getting run over by a bus, etc.) proper perspective is a matter of--one’s own perspective!

any contribution we make to that pool is pretty much insignificant,

Yep, that pool is an ocean.

so we still own our composition.

Well…on paper.

no one makes significant money anymore from selling music. Streaming revenues are fractions of a penny, MP3s sell for less than $1, and all reputable music publishers/licensors refuse to accept AI-generated music, so we can still try to make money with our songs.

I agree with the premise, but the conclusion that we can still try to make money from our music doesn’t really follow in the context of independent music, or art for arts sake under the artists control. I’m pretty sure most music artists are not generally all that interested in handing their music to commercial publishing houses or licensors, dealing with the many parameters/restrictions, and all the other baggage that goes with handing over control of ones art/music—for a few bucks. Even if one is lucky and the money is really good, is working under external restrictions/requirements/specifications really going to be something fulfilling in the long run for creative and emotional personalities who require independence? And how long will the money last in the world we are heading into where Suno is already being used cranking out music in almost any style. It is just a matter of time, IMO before it and other models like it will be able to pin point, or home in on, even very individual styles, and I don’t think the law is going to be enforced to protect individual copyright other than for big artists/corporations with attorneys. Like you said, someone get’s a hit, they get sued (I have no idea in those suits how many individual artists get screwed, but don’t have much faith in the legal system to protect individual artists—maybe I'm totally wrong).

Music is still one of the few areas in modern life having little patches that aren’t corporate. I’m hoping it stays that way. But I won’t be surprised if we are heading into a world where not only music but anything with an individual spark that exists online will instantly be copied, cranked out by AI or AI operators to sell advertising--until fully diluted and no longer “useful", which won’t take long. I just don’t think copyright is going to mean much in a future world where music has become an AI commodity with an even much shorter "self-life" than it has today, where I agree with you that the vast majority of human made art is so diluted online that there is a very small chance someones individual contribution will become something people cherish.

it's very likely these days that we'll get sued by someone who claims we stole their music, even if it isn't true. That pretty much happens like clockwork nowadays - get a #1 hit, get sued.

Well, I’ll never have a #1 hit, so that’s one less headache!

So holding back a song for fear of AI scraping is like choosing to not fly a plane for fear crashing. Both are possible, but the chances are infintesimal - and at least with music, the result is far less catastrophic.

Understood, but to each their own. If anything, at least AI is incentivizing artists/musicians re-visit their values or soul search why they are doing something creative in the first place. I suppose for many of us, it is because of something inside compelling us, or simply as a way to pass time that is more meaningful than other activities.

For now, I'm less inclined to share my music online than ever. Just like in a forum or a bar, nobody wants to talk inside a vacuum or an empty room. Writing in a journal is preferable to that.

 

[Spirit Groove]

If software companies were artists would you just tell them to not bother with anti-piracy efforts?

Artists are an easy target because they have very little power in a money-centric socio-economic paradigm that reinforces money on every level.

Huge corporations who have their ideas copied and resold by another entity will battle tooth and nail to protect their product. But because artists have little economic power they're supposed to just give up and let their work be stolen, copied, plagiarized and resold in whatever form?

I'm moving the goalposts from my original question but the underlying concern is the same.

 

[Spirit Groove]

FYC:

 

[Mike Greene]

Should I just keep my music to myself?

Concerns over AI scraping should be put into proper perspective.

For me, this two sentence exchange is the heart of the matter.

We all agree there's tons of bad, and even unethical, things about AI. But to then not put your music out there, for fear of AI stealing from it? IMO that's way too extreme of a reaction.

We already live in a very imperfect world, where our property (songs or otherwise) are always in danger of being stolen. But that doesn't stop me from parking my car on the street, or walking alone at night, or telling Amazon to leave packages on the porch. (Heck, that Corvette in my avatar is stored in garage with an unhooked door mechanism. You can literally just lift the door!)

Now that I think about it, I *have* had music stolen, although it was by a human, not AI. This was for a Pizza Hut commercial. It's a long story, but the essence is that I wrote the song, but he, as the music library owner, put his name on it (!) and I didn't get a nickel. It would have been a slam dunk lawsuit, except that's when I learned how expensive it is to sue. And given that the license fee for the track was only $10k, even if I could get a court to add punitive damages, it wouldn't have made financial sense.

Now that I think about it even more, if I go back even earlier in my history, I co-wrote a song with a one-hit-wonder guy who was trying to make a comeback. A couple years later, I was in a record store and in the cutout bins, I saw a new record from him with a song title very similar to the one we wrote. I bought it and sure enough, it's the same f'ing song, with a few lyric changes. I called him up and he claimed this was a completely new song. His record sold zilch, so it wasn't worth pursuing, but it still pissed me off.

The point of those two stories is that even though those sorts of things can (and did!) happen, it didn't stop me from pitching songs or collaborating with other writers. Without contracts. Could more bad things have happened? I suppose. But if my ancestors could party around the campfire, with saber-toothed tigers lurking in the bushes, then I can post a song on the internet, even though there's risk of it being stolen or used to train AI.

 

[Nekujak]

@Louie and @Spirit Groove , please don't get me wrong. I believe the appropriation of our music, or any work of art, without permission, compensation, or attribution is dead wrong. Period. But the risk of that happening, by both AI and humans, will always be there. So as an artist, what do I do about it?

I create art, for both personal self-expression and commercial purposes, to be shared and enjoyed by others. Some of it earns me money, a lot of it doesn’t, but that doesn’t matter - I create music so it can be put out into the world.

I’m not pleased that AI can scoop up and repurpose bits of my creations, but if I let my fear of that happening (even when the chances are extremely small) prevent me from sharing my art, then AI has truly won the ultimate victory.

In this world of AI-generated everything, we need human-created art more than ever. If all artists refrain from sharing their works, all we're left with is recycled AI garbage, which is not a world I want to live in.

My previous posts were merely pointing out that:
A) the liklihood of AI using any individual piece of music is extremely low, given how much music is already part of the AI resource pool;
B) even if AI does use bits of my music, the likely consequences of that are not catastrophic - my original music is still mine, and I’m still free to create more;
C) and as @Mike Greene vividly illustrated, the chances of another human unscrupulously appropriating my music and causing me direct harm, are far greater than any incidental usage by AI.

The world needs our art - so we shouldn't let AI fears inhibit our ability to bring beauty into the world

 

[Nekujak]

FYC:

I only watched the first half of this video, so maybe I'm not getting the full picture, but as far as I can tell, this guy is trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

Everything he's talking about only pertains to the YouTube ecosystem, and has no bearing or consequence on actual copyright ownership or legal standing.

Yes, ContentID is a flawed system and is extremely vulnerable to abuse, especially by humans more than AI. But it in no way affects actual copyright ownership in the real world. It's only relevant to the use and monetization of videos on YouTube, based on YouTube's own arbitrary rules of enforcement and dispute resolution.

What's really unfortunate, and has led to multiple videos like this guy made, is that YouTube decided to label ContentID matches as "copyirght" claims. When in fact, they have nothing to do with copyright, but are merely audio fingerprint matches, that are very often completely wrong.

ContentID doesn't exist to enforce copyright. It's used by YouTube to cover it's ass, so it doesn't get sued by media giants when users try to make money from content that isn't theirs. The problem is, YouTube has chosen to take a sledgehammer approach to ContentID interpretation and enforcement, ignoring the actual nuances and subtleties of plagiarism, fair use, and other aspects of content ownership.

The real problem is that there are unscrupulous folks out there who register works they don't actually own with ContentID, including AI-generated music. So in YouTube's eyes, they become the content owner. This has nothing to do with AI, and doesn't affect legal copyright ownership in any way, it's simply bad people doing bad things within the YouTube environment.

 

[Spirit Groove]

This has nothing to do with AI, and doesn't affect legal copyright ownership in any way, it's simply bad people doing bad things within the YouTube environment.

"Bad people doing bad things" is not only on Youtube.

The video goes to my point from earlier, that money protects money and the degree to which technology enables the bad actor is at supervillain levels while the average person just has to accept getting shafted.

 

[HCMarkus]

Every page of my website displays this sentence under my copyright notice:

This website’s content may not be used for the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system.

I figure I could be awarded damages if future class-action plaintiffs prevail, and this little note enhances my chances.

 

[Tim Nash]

I'm less concerned with AI than with the sheer volume of audio files people create and upload. Of the 100,000 audio files uploaded every day, maybe one is actually good. How do you find the good stuff when it's buried in a pile of over 100 million crappy audio files? No wonder people don't care about music anymore.

 

[ElectraHeart]

You are most likely going to have to put in a lot of effort to get people to listen to your music whatever you do. By that I mean build a following on social media for your artist project, play live to build your audience, come up with a proper multi-week release campaign for each track you release etc. It takes up a lot of time and energy.

You can still just stick stuff up on Spotify, but then your audience is most likely going to be your immediate family and friends (which is roughly the same as not releasing it to the public at all, other than being able to show your music to people you meet).

The AI companies are going to hoover up everything on the Internet regardless of copyright, but I don't think it's worth not releasing anything to avoid it.

 

[Spirit Groove]

I'm less concerned with AI than with the sheer volume of audio files people create and upload. Of the 100,000 audio files uploaded every day, maybe one is actually good.

AI companies already compete with real musicians for listeners and at some point will surpass the amount of uploads by actual people.

How do you find the good stuff when it's buried in a pile of over 100 million crappy audio files? No wonder people don't care about music anymore.

Streamers and AI will push their own 'products' so the individual has little chance of getting heard.

You can still just stick stuff up on Spotify, but then your audience is most likely going to be your immediate family and friends (which is roughly the same as not releasing it to the public at all, other than being able to show your music to people you meet).

I agree.

The AI companies are going to hoover up everything on the Internet regardless of copyright, but I don't think it's worth not releasing anything to avoid it.

Again, I agree with you but, to your first point, if you can't compete for listeners then why even put it out there just to be stolen by some algorithm?

What I'd like to find is a way for real artists to compete with the machine, if that's even possible.

 

[Spirit Groove]

Thoughts on this?

 

[Polkasound]

The idea that AI is scraping my music doesn't discourage me, but it might if someone used AI to scrape my music for the specific purpose of cloning my sound and style.

General AI scraping doesn't bother me because to the average music listener, I sound like every other polka band out there. Whatever AI scrapes of mine and sends to the masses won't affect me.

But, to Cleveland-style polka music aficionados, I have a distinct sound. That sound is characterized by my writing style, the musicians and vocalists I hire, the instruments we play, and my mixing preferences. If someone used AI generate polka music in my style that was scraped just from my music, I'm sure I'd be a little freaked out.

Fortunately, I don't see that happening. I'm lucky. Polka fans are steeped in tradition. They would not tolerate AI-generated polka music. They'd quickly squash it at the seed level, giving it no chance to take root. So I think my polka recording venture is safe.

Outside of polka music, however, I'm just one of a gazillion no-name, drop-in-the-bucket indie musicians. I have no intention of competing with AI because I can't. I'm not as a good as AI. I'm just... me. But I'll continue to record and release music because I enjoy expressing myself through music. As long as I can create songs that people enjoy, I will continue to write, record, and release them.

 

[HCMarkus]

Then, there's this:

In a wild time for copyright law, the US Copyright Office has no leader

Rudderless Copyright Office has taken on new prominence during the AI boom.

arstechnica.com

 

[Tim Nash]

I think the way to compete with AI is not compete with it at all. Go the "organic food" route and separate ourselves from the machine. Means an old way, is the new way and people buy music because they like it, it's real and priced reasonably for today's market. Instead of it being everywhere, have it in only one place. Like an organic Bandcamp site.