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< | The Open Source Pop Star: How Grimes Shows the Way Forward for Artists in the Age of AI | >
> | The Fallacy of Music Ownership and its Enduring Legal Fictions. | | | | |
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< | -- By KieranSingh2001 - 22 Feb 2024 | >
> | -- By KieranSingh2001 - 29 Apr 2024 | | | | |
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< | Introduction | >
> | History of Music Ownership | | | | |
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< | We expected Artificial Intelligence (AI) to replace menial labor and leave time for creative work, and yet it is replacing creative work instead of menial labor. We also expect music artists to be able to take down leaks when they happen, yet they still spread. Both phenomena are a result of denial: we ignore AI's impact on art because we don't consider it "real art," and music artists ignore leaks, possibly because they -- wrongly -- think it's feasible to take it down from the internet. | >
> | Music, as a cultural and social phenomenon, was not commodified for much of human history. Music was a shared "social process," without a rigid producer-consumer relationship between those who composed the music and those who listened. With the advent of recording machines, music became commodified and corporatized. At the same time, | | | | |
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< | Music Leaks (Real and AI) | | | | |
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< | When music leaks, | >
> | History of Sampling | | | | |
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Music is not a secret. What is a "leak"? Music is not a commodity: how can "getting to market early" matter? Much of the music I listen to every day is centuries old. Most of the rest is folk music that has never left the public domain. How can property conceptions possibly capture in any useful way the human relationship to music? All of this stuff you are quoting is just morally repugnant and intellectually indefensible neoliberal bullshit, right?
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> | Arbitrary line drawing | | | | |
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< | public sentiment splinters. The first camp, normally die-hard fans of the artists whose music leaked, desperately tries to hide the leaks, either by spamming search results, using social pressure to prevent other fans from listening to the leaks or talking to the posters of the leaks themselves. The second camp of people listens to the music, decides the artist made it, and gives their opinion on said leak. The third and final camp are those convinced that the songs are made using AI, overlaying the artist's voice onto the song. The debate then devolves into people who like the song arguing that it is real and those who do not arguing that it is AI. | >
> | Modern Copyright Law | | | | |
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< | Legal Safeguards | | | | |
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< | Real Leaks | >
> | Ownership of a sound recording, and ownership of the underlying composition, are two different concepts and the owners can oftentimes be two different people or entities, like the record label and the songwriter. Section 203 of the copyright act provides that songwriters can reclaim their copyrighted works (read: sound recording) after thirty-five years, but the rule does not apply uniformly, | | | | |
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< | A blogger was criminally charged for leaking unreleased Guns-N-Roses songs in 2015. He was sentenced to a year of probation and 2 months of house arrest. Yet, according to The Week, the criminal proceedings only amplified the existence of the leak -- and it caused more people to download the song themselves. [1] Even when these proceedings cross the line from civil to criminal, they do not fullt delete the music. Other artists have threatened legal action, though it's unconfirmed whether they'll follow through [2] | | | | |
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< | AI | >
> | Composition | | | | |
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< | According to Louis Tompros at Harvard Law, it is hard to legally justify taking down a song that uses an AI version of a singer's voice. Universal Media Group was only able to take an AI-facilitated Drake down from TikTok? due to its use of a copyrighted producer tag [4]. Moreover, arguing that the act of training the AI was a copyright violation, or arguing that the output itself is copyrighted, may be legally tenuous [4]. What Tompros proposes, rather, is using the legal right of publicity, the idea that imitating a singer and presenting a piece of media as though it was a singer's work, is illegal, at least according to California and Ninth Circuit precedent [4]. Still, this takes far longer than using the DMCA, and the songs will spread through internet in the meantime. | >
> | Sampling | | | | |
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< | On Youtube, but not Tiktok [5], an artist or label can request a takedown of any song that mimics an artist with AI [6]. Yet, without broader regulation, one site's policies will not do much to stem the spread of AI-covered music. | | | | |
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< | What happens when they're indistinguishable? | | | | |
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< | Debates over the authenticity of the music are fascinating, but the artists' predicament is more so. If a certain song is real, and from an upcoming album, and the artist or label decides to pursue a DMCA takedown of the song, it could prove the authenticity to the internet, "spoiling" the album and disincentivizing people from listening to it when it comes out. In other words, leaks may be more costly if people know that they have already heard the artists' coming release, which could happen with DMCA action. the uncertainty of AI might be an asset to artists, as the general public will not have their expectations set by the leak. | >
> | In terms of sampling -- the taking of a certain part of a song recording and using it for another song -- the original copyright holder has exclusive rights. in other words, “get a license, or do not sample.” Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F.3d 792, 801 (6th Cir. 2005). However, the de minimis defense, that the use is excusable where an “average audience would not recognize the appropriation,” VMG Salsoul, Ltd. Liab. Co. v. Ciccone, 824 F.3d 871, 878 (9th Cir. 2016), Applies here, id.,at 874. | | | | |
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< | Profiting From Artistic Misfortune | >
> | The De Facto Uneforceability of Copyright Law | | | | |
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< | Licensing Your Voice -- GrimesAI? | >
> | The legal rights to distribution, use, and remixing of music do not reflect what is happening online. While unauthorized distribution of music is, and has been, fully punished by law, especially when the music is unreleased by the artist, the files remain out there, and unretractable, by the internet. | | | | |
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< | Grimes, the controversial singer, came up with a way to deal with the phenomenon of AI covers without going through complicated copyright battles, or simply rolling over and allowing unauthorized use of her voice across the internet. She allows producers to use her voice, along with a specific AI trained on it, to make music, provided she gets to keep 50% of the royalties. The producers of the song can have it published on mainstream streaming platforms, and take the other 50% of the royalties, and Grimes lets the producers keep the rights to the "underlying composition" [8]. Both the singer and the producer are incentivized to use this method through profit maximization. Philosophically, though, this method is a tacit acceptance that one has lost control of their voice. Yet, it's likely impossible to un-make AI, and certainly impossible to delete AI covers of songs from everyone's computers. Thus, this method may be the best way forward, allowing artists to profit off of most uses of their voice. | | | | |
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> | the Creative Commons | | | | |
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< | Releasing Leaked Music | >
> | Creative Commons, founded in the early 2000s by legal and internet leaders, sought to provide artists with the option of less restrictive copyrights on their works. The founders wanted to find a middle ground between stringent copyright and the public domain. While not official licenses based on statutes, creative commons are legal tools that allow the original copyright holders of a work to enable others to use it (under certain conditions) more freely, without the aforementioned complicated litigation issues. Additionally, according to the organization, they have never been declared unenforceable. All Creative Commons licenses require attribution to the original work, and some require more stringent conditions, like not remixing the work or not relying on the work for profit | | | | |
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< | In terms of authentic music, the solutions are unclear. If it's for a planned album, the artist can wait and hope the leaks don't harm the release and hype of the album. If it's scrapped music, and the artist has the rights to it, they should release it, riding the hype of the leak and allowing themselves to make royalties off of the music. It seems as though artists don't have possession over all of their unreleased music, however. Charli XCX, a pop star, tweeted in 2022 asking for a link to high-quality MP3s of a leaked album from years previous [9]. This could signal that artists don't own some of their leaked music, nor do they have access to it. If they do own the music, however, releasing it to platforms like Spotify will help them regain autonomy over their music. | >
> | A freer music industry | | | | |
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< | Conclusion | >
> | The melodies, rhythms, and themes used in the music likely existed before the creation of any song, maybe not in the same order as in a copyrighted recording, but the de minimus doctrine and current ownership rules are too restrictive. Right now, the person who has the historically accidental privilege of copyright over those musical elements is the arbitrary determiner of who can use them later, as well as who can profit from them. Perhaps there should be a higher bar than de minimis for copyright violations in interpolations or sampling. Artists should have the right to make a living off their work, but if someone wants to integrate significant elements into their work, they should be able to do so, provided they are not trying to profit from a direct copy (if they are, statutory licenses like those that already exist may be prudent). | | | | |
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< | Artists must operate in a world where their music, both real and AI-generated, will be leaked, with no certain way to take it down from the internet. With that in mind, they should stop trying to resist the leaks, and instead embrace them as a way to expand the reach of their music and their career, as well as their wallets.
There are some very interesting ideas here, though they are somewhat hard to find amidst the confetti.
"I will let you play my violin if you give me half your royalties." That's the proposition this person is offering, correct? Whatever it means to "own" the instrument, we can say for sure (1) that this is not an economically viable wheeze unless there are (a) no other violins, or (b) no royalties; and therefore (2) that this will not have the anticipated effect for the person who dreamed it up. Your reference to :"open source" in the title is ironically utterly incorrect. This person, like Elon Musk, seems not to have any understanding of how the legal and creative dynamics of free software and free culture work. This person wants to use CC-BY-NC licensing, the way so many professional photographers do, so that the products of their creation can spread widely, while keeping control over commercial exploitation. An existing legal framework exists, has proven out in large-scale artistic value creation, and is being ignored by someone whose narcissism is superior to their learning.
So I think there are two independent routes to improvement, either or both of which seem promising to me. We could go back to the beginning and ask what all this "ownership of music" rubbish is about anyway, as I did in various writings from 1999-2003, including Anarchism Triumphant and the dotCommunist Manifesto, Or we could apply a little historical and legal analysis to the Creative Commons institutions, from CC Sampling to CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-NC, to understand the interactions you are presently observing in a less People-magazine sort of way. And we can. for Heaven's sake, get this "AI" nonsense out of the picture: it obviously doesn't matter how the samples are stitched together, right?
Words:999
Cites
Why aren't these URLs just links in the text? You're making things ugly and hard for the reader when they ought to be able to click straight through to your sources from the text anchor. Look at the TextFormattingRules if you need to know how, or just use the link tool in the editor toolbar.
1. https://theweek.com/articles/503661/kevin-cogill-punishing-guns-n-roses-leaker
2. https://www.stlamerican.com/arts_and_entertainment/hot_sheet/st-louisan-sza-takes-legal-action-against-suspects-who-leaked-her-music/article_9f8f9af2-b804-11ee-8140-3b28bf73f520.html
3. https://www.complex.com/music/a/complex/the-dangers-of-leaking-music-5-cautionary-tales
4. https://hls.harvard.edu/today/ai-created-a-song-mimicking-the-work-of-drake-and-the-weeknd-what-does-that-mean-for-copyright-law/
5. https://support.tiktok.com/en/using-tiktok/creating-videos/ai-generated-content
6. https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/14/23959658/google-youtube-generative-ai-labels-music-copyright
7. https://www.404media.co/harry-styles-one-direction-ai-leaked-songs/
8. https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/06/12/grimes-helps-artists-distribute-songs-using-her-ai-voice--if-they-pay-royalties-heres-how-it-works/?sh=6600499349ae
9. https://twitter.com/charli_xcx/status/1507519982225174531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1507519982225174531%7Ctwgr%5E7b08482ed98cb5076c9895ccfca1e6566faeecfd%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgagadaily.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fcharli_xcx%2Fstatus%2F1507519982225174531 | >
> | Alternatively, a widening of the creative commons system may achieve the same ends. Moreover, a far wider use of CC-BY-NC licensing by mainstream artists would simply give artists more dignity in processes that are happening anyway – outside the purview of copyright doctrine. Leakers, listeners, and remixers who do not have invidious intentions would. | | |
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