Originally published at: Actual human indicted for making millions off of AI music - Boing Boing
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So, just to be clear, the first of the two examples is not really about AI, and the second is about not disclosing that it’s AI, right?
The point about AI doing covers openly being not-necessarily-technically-illegal is an interesting one I’d looking forward to hearing more about.
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I liked the somewhat related exploit where one band posted an album consisting entirely of silent tracks and encouraged their fans to play them on a loop while they slept. Didn’t technically violate the terms of service or do anything dishonest, but of course Spotify eventually removed the album after paying out about $20K in royalties.
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I support all actions that disrupt Spotify’s chokehold on creativity.
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Couldn’t John Cage’s estate sue for copyright infringement?
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Seconded. I applaud this guy’s efforts - it’s a creative use for AI, it undermines an inherently crappy system and most importantly, doesn’t harm actual musical artists. Probably causes some annoyance for Spotify’s customers, though, so not entirely harmless.
I don’t know whether this will help artists in the long run, but wouldn’t it be great if flooding the web with AI-generated spume resulted in a reassessment of the value of real human creations and a restoration of their perceived value.
Anyway, I can dream.
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You know what WILL help artists in the long run (and the short and medium run, for that matter)? A society that doesn’t treat art/culture as a cheap commodity that has not other value other than making some already wealthy person wealthier. A society that funds the arts for their own sake and doesn’t treat artists like entitled whiners for wanting to have the kind of support they could use for improving the lives of the rest of us… also, better integrating art in general into our educational system instead of treating it like an extra that only the wealthy can afford…
None of this is difficult to grok. AI is not going to improve SHIT, especially not in the arts.
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I agree that it would be wonderful if society valued art and culture for its own sake and not as cheap commodity entertainment.
I also agree with you about AI. I despise AI and using it to generate so-called art.
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No. They did with Mike Batt but this wasn’t passing itself off as being 4’ 33” , it’s just absence of recorded sound and it isn’t even broken up in the same way.
I streamed that album on a loop because why not?
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Okay but what if I recorded a cover of “4’33"”? It’s $1/month for the cover song licensing fee via DistroKid (the distro service I use).
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Mike Batt did and they sued him. He had it listed as a track on the record and didn’t pony up.
Mike Batt is most famous (to me at least) for writing the Wombles theme song.
ETA
Apparently I’m talking bollox
So really the question is, is it worth my $12 a year to get a legitimate license…
No!
More characters!
I was being silly, obviously, but I’m pretty sure not giving credit to the artist your song resembles doesn’t get you off the copyright hook.
“Instead, Beato believes Spotify itself is already in the game, slipping both real and A.I. songs into playlists and harvesting listens to keep a larger percent of the royalty pool for itself to maximize profits.”
Most likely this is why I have to keep wrestling with Spotify to stop setting my playlists to its Smart Shuffle function, which claims it’s inserting “artists we think you’d be interested in.”
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So, charges for making money off AI songs, but no charges for the piracy required so they could be created.
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so a guy does the most obvious and logical thing to game Spotify and it worked, then he used AI to streamline the process.
instead of anticipating someone doing the obvious and deciding to take measures against that happening in-house, Spotify just waits until the inevitable happens and then uses the legal system?
sounds like a waste of our legal resources.
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