AI and Copyright: Music
We saw in our last article that there is now pirated content of a new kind: fake books and fake audiobooks. Music has long been the star pupil of anti-piracy thanks to a well-designed business model that seemed to satisfy a very large majority of users. But recent developments in AI could well change the game…
Music, the Star Pupil of Anti-Piracy
Music was the very first industry to be durably affected by piracy. Even before the rise of computing, “bootleg” cassettes and then burned CDs were traded under the counter. They were often recordings made at concerts or rehearsals, or copies made “by hand” with rudimentary equipment. Then, from the early 2000s, with the rise of encoding technologies and well-known sites such as Napster, MP3 sharing exploded. But the music industry is also the one that found solutions the fastest, greatly reducing piracy, notably through a system of competitively priced offers. It was thus possible to limit revenue losses, while giving users the impression that they could find everything or almost everything they were looking for on a platform such as Spotify or YouTube Music, without having to multiply subscriptions. In recent years, music piracy, without necessarily declining, had stabilized at an acceptable level.
AI and Music Creation
What can be automated with AI, and how can this automation promote piracy?
AgencePDN gets this kind of content removed: see our Music service.
In particular, it is possible to improve the quality of pirate copies, and turn poor-quality recordings into much better versions, making pirate copies more attractive to consumers. Notably, those famous 1980s “bootlegs” are resurfacing, with remastered versions that bring in no revenue for either the artists or the record labels.
Specifically, the following uses are possible:
Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems
AI-based systems can subtly modify music files to evade the audio recognition technologies used by streaming platforms and file-sharing sites.
Automated Distribution
Bots and automated networks can be used to distribute pirated files on a large scale, making it harder to fight the illegal distribution of music.
AI Generation and Manipulation
AI algorithms, particularly those related to audio signal processing, have enabled significant advances in music creation. Tools such as Jukedeck, Amper Music, and OpenAIs useNet can generate original musical compositions by imitating various styles and genres.
AI technologies also allow advanced manipulation of existing music tracks. Source separation algorithms, for example, can isolate the different components of a piece of music (voice, instruments, etc.), making it easier to create unauthorized remixes or alternative versions.
These tools can be used creatively, notably in electronic music, but also to circumvent copyright by slightly modifying tracks to make them unrecognizable to traditional detection systems, while taking advantage of a well-known artist's fame to sell pirated content.
A Decline in the Value of Music
As with literature, there is a risk that these musical manipulations will diminish the perceived value of music. Ease of access and a profusion of creations of varying quality may lead users to wonder why they should keep paying for music. As with literature, the variable quality of content produced with these new technologies inevitably harms authors, whatever its quality, either by creating unfair competition or by devaluing content.
The reality is that many bands have adapted to piracy and now rely much more on concert tours and merchandise sold on site than on album sales to ensure their income.
Reactions from the Industry and Regulators
Faced with these challenges, the music industry and regulators are looking for solutions to protect artists' rights and fight piracy by developing anti-piracy or detection technologies (often quickly bypassed). Music lobbies and governments are seeking to put stronger legislation in place, but it too evolves more slowly than technology. Consumer education continues, but its effectiveness remains limited.
The RIAA Against AI
Recently, this evolution in music creation was illustrated by a court case pitting the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which brings together the big names of the music industry such as Warner or Sony Music, against two companies that generate music using artificial intelligence, Suno and Udio, in June 2024.
The plaintiffs accused the companies of copying popular recordings (still under copyright), incorporating them into AI models and then using these technologies to generate tracks of quality comparable to human recordings.
The two AI companies respond in an almost identical way: they created pieces of music that did not exist, and could not have existed without their intervention. These pieces therefore cannot be considered copies. The AIs would merely draw inspiration from existing things and styles, which belong to no one, just as a human creator does, using technologies such as neural networks. AI models collect statistics on the exact form of a song, on how the drums or guitar will be used in different styles… The two companies in question also defend themselves by stating that the analyzed tracks are not stored in the databases.
The plaintiffs, for their part, clearly present these creations as “copies.”
Who is right? For the moment, the complaint has been declared inadmissible; but this case highlights new issues that will certainly be paramount in the coming years.
Join us in September for our new theme. In the meantime, search and removal remain the most effective methods for making content disappear from the web as much as possible. If you have a film, a series, software or an ebook to protect, don't hesitate to call on our services by contacting one of our account managers; PDN has been a pioneer in cybersecurity and anti-piracy for more than ten years, and we surely have a solution to help you. Happy reading, and see you soon!
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