Misuse of copyrighted music by AI companies ‘could exploit artists’
The misuse of copyrighted music by artificial intelligence companies could exploit musicians, a former executive at a leading tech startup has warned.
The technology is trained on a huge number of existing songs, which it uses to generate music based on a text prompt.
Copyrighted work is already being used to train artificial intelligence models without permission, according to Ed Newton-Rex, who resigned from his role leading Stability AI’s audio team because he didn’t agree with the company’s opinion that training generative AI models on copyrighted works is “fair use” of the material.
Ed Newton-Rex
Mr Newton-Rex told Sky News that his issue is not so much with Stability as a company as it is with the generative AI industry as a whole.
“Everyone really adopts this same position and this position is essentially we can train these generative models on whatever we want to, and we can do that without consent from the rights holders, from the people who actually created that content and who own that content,” he said.
Newton-Rex added that one of the reasons large AI companies do not agree deals with artists and labels is because it involves “legwork” that costs them time and money.
Emad Mostaque, co-founder and chief executive of Stability AI, said that fair use supports creative development.
Fair use is a legal clause that allows copyrighted work to be used without the owner’s permission for specified non-commercial purposes like research or teaching.
Stability’s audio generator, Stable Audio, gave musicians the option to opt out of their pool of training data.
The company has received 160 million opt-out requests since May 2023.
Millions of AI generated songs are being created online every day, and big name artists are even signing deals with technology giants to create AI music tools.
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Can generative AI become a hit in the music industry?
Musicians through the ages have embraced technology, whether that is manipulating their voices with autotune or using digital production tools to sample and repurpose music.
Sampling, which is the reuse of a sound recording in another piece of recorded music, was considered a threat to the work of musicians when the technology was first developed.
Regulation has since been put in place meaning that an artist must get permission from the copyright holder in order to legally use a sample.
Now, sampling is the cornerstone of a number of modern music genres from hip-hop to jungle.
In some ways, generative AI is no different. But whether it is a benefit or a detriment to art now depends on regulators.
Tech giants like Google, YouTube and Sony are launching AI tools that allow anyone to generate music based on a text prompt.
Artists have agreed for their work to be used in these models, but there has been an influx of AI generators that are thought to have scraped music without the creator’s consent.
Bad Bunny, the Grammy award-winning singer from Puerto Rico, was the latest in a series of established artists to criticise the use of his voice without his consent in an AI-generated song that went viral in November.
He told his 20 million WhatsApp followers to leave if they liked “this s****y song that is viral on TikTok … I don’t want you on tour either.”
Moiya McTier
Boomy, an AI music generator that claims it does not use copyrighted work, said more than 18 million songs were produced using the platform as of November.
The human artistry campaign, which represents music associations from across the world, has called for regulations to protect copyright and ensure artists are given the option to licence their work to AI companies for a fee.
Moiya McTier, senior adviser to the campaign, said: “When artists’ work is used in these models, those artists have to be credited and compensated if they have given their consent to be used in these models.”
Kate Winslet says she never set out to become a director – but after reading her son’s first screenplay, she simply “couldn’t let it go”.
In 2023, Joe Anders, whose father is director Sam Mendes, signed up to a screenwriting course at the National Film and Television School.
His mother read one of his assignments and insisted it was worth making into a film – so they did.
Anders created a story around adult siblings who reunite around Christmastime to say goodbye to their dying mother.
Abiding by Mark Twain’s phrase “write what you know”, it was inspired by the death of Winslet’s mother Sally Bridgers-Winslet from ovarian cancer in 2017.
Helen Mirren (left) as June and Kate Winslet (right) as Julia in Goodbye June. Pic: Netflix
Speaking to Sky News, the Titanic actress says they learned “how to develop a completely new relationship” as colleagues”.
“I’m incredibly impressed by him and really proud of him, not least because he wrote this screenplay and started writing it when he was 19,” she says.
“But he had to adapt and learn very, very quickly that when you’re developing something, you take notes, you take feedback.
“Netflix became involved at some stage that they were also giving notes to, and then I was sort of playing the role of kind of protecting the project and also protecting him at the same time from things that, you know, may necessarily not have been useful, things that actually were great ideas.”
Winslet speaking to Sky News
Anders isn’t her only child to have got their start alongside their famous parent.
Mia Threapleton, who most recently starred in the Wes Anderson film The Phoenician Scheme, made her on-screen debut in the 2014 Winslet-led movie A Little Chaos.
They worked together again in the series I Am… which won Winslet a TV BAFTA award for best leading actress.
Goodbye June stars (L-R) Johnny Flynn, Andrea Riseborough, Timothy Spall, Kate Winslet and Fisayo Akinade, among others. Pic: Netflix
An actor’s director
Winslet has starred in some of the biggest films of all time, with Titanic, Avatar and Sense And Sensibility, to name a few.
She says it’s that experience in front of the camera that helped her tailor the on-set experience to help its actors explore their emotions and creativity.
“We know what works for us as actors from a director,” she says. “We know what does not work, and we also know what’s actively destructive and sometimes that can mean the environment, the working environment.
“Film sets are very busy places it can often be frantic, sometimes it’s hard to kind of follow what’s going on or what you’re doing next, and it mattered to me enormously that everybody always felt extremely safe, completely informed, and very free.”
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(L-R) Andrea Riseborough, Johnny Flynn, Kate Winslet and Timothy Spall in Goodbye June. Pic: Netflix
Winslet adds: “In this country, we’re not necessarily so good at processing, especially when it comes to talking about grief.
“And so hopefully through this film, which is also very funny, hopefully through this film, people might see something of themselves and connect with it in that way.”
Timothy Spall, next to co-star Toni Collette, says it is not surprising Winslet is such a good director
‘One of the greats’
Co-star Timothy Spall says “it’s not surprising she’s such a good director” – and calls her “one of the great actresses in the world.”
“I worked with her when she was 20. She was impressive then, just before she got Titanic… and she’s paid attention. She’s listened. She’s a great actress,” Spall says of Winslet.
“She knows how it works, and she helps other actors to do the best they can. And she’s all over the crew. She’s great with them. She’s paid attention in every department.”
Goodbye June is out on Netflix on 24 December
The Oscars will be streamed live on YouTube from 2029 after being broadcast on the ABC network for decades.
It means the annual film awards will be available to the video-sharing platform’s two billion users for free around the world in four years.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the deal with Google-owned YouTube on Wednesday, saying the streaming giant will have the exclusive global rights to the Hollywood awards from 2029 to 2033.
YouTube will effectively be the home to all things Oscars, including red-carpet coverage, the Governors Awards and the Oscar nominations announcement.
The Academy Awards ceremony has been broadcast by ABC for most of its history, but 2028 will be its last year showing the Oscars as they celebrate their 100th anniversary.
“The Oscars, including red carpet coverage, behind-the-scenes content, Governors Ball access, and more, will be available live and for free to over two billion viewers around the world on YouTube, and to YouTube TV subscribers in the United States,” an announcement on the Academy Awards’ website read.
“We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the Oscars and our year-round academy programming,” said academy chief executive Bill Kramer and academy president Lynette Howell Taylor.
They said the new partnership with the platform “will allow us to expand access to the work of the academy to the largest worldwide audience possible”.
File pic: Reuters
‘Inspiring new generation of creativity and film lovers’
“The Oscars are one of our essential cultural institutions, honouring excellence in storytelling and artistry,” said YouTube chief executive Neal Mohan.
“Partnering with the academy to bring this celebration of art and entertainment to viewers all over the world will inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy.”
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The awards will be available with audio tracks in many languages, in addition to closed captioning.
Last year’s Academy Awards were watched by 19.7 million viewers on the Disney-owned ABC, a five-year high but far below the show’s biggest audience of 57 million in 1998.
The network has been the broadcast home to the Oscars for almost its entire history. NBC first televised the Oscars in 1953, but ABC picked up the rights in 1961.
Aside from a period between 1971 and 1975, when NBC again aired the show, the Oscars have been on ABC.
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