By Nitika Sinha and Nieharika Sharma
The intersection of artificial intelligence and the Music industry is rapidly transforming the landscape of music creation, distribution, and rights management. AI[1] poses important issues around ownership, creativity, and the preservation of artist’s rights in addition to providing previously unheard-of prospects for innovation. As AI generated music becomes more chic and algorithms increasingly shape what the audience/consumers listen to, the industry is faced with the challenge of balancing technological advancement with the need to safeguard the intellectual property and creativity of human artists.
AI and Music Creation: Opportunities and Challenges
One of the important concerns for the music owners is their creative rights. The Copyright law usually provides exclusive rights to the creators that includes musicians, composers and lyricists. AI-generated content and recreation of artist’s voices, vocal styles and compositions currently lacks a legal framework, which makes ownership and copyright infringement issues more difficult to handle. The music owners, and production houses should take caution on overreliance on AI as it cannot replace human intuition in artistic creation.
Music labels may contend that, either via claims of creative control or under current contractual arrangements, they are entitled to the copyright to music produced with AI techniques. On the other hand, proponents of AI-generated music argue that laws should be amended to reflect the technology’s creative participation in the process. The use of AI enables a person to get a good quality sound/music and makes it easier for them to come up with new mixes. AI platforms are undoubtedly cost effective, affordable, and minimizes errors in music production which is why the entertainment industry is gradually adopting AI tools for creating/composing music. To which a few, the Indian filmmaker like Ram Gopal Varma recently declared that he will not work with human musicians[2]. Adding to this, A.R. Rahman also used the voices of the late Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed with the help of AI for a song.[3] Anshuman Sharma and Aditya Kalway (social media personalities) used a vocal filter of many artists and recreated a songs like ‘Lutt Putt Gaya’ in late Mohammed Rafi’s voice.[4] There are many such instances where music or song as a whole is being created without any original work. But the question arises as to whether any profits are being made or not?
The Sound of Controversy: AI and Copyright Infringement in Music
When AI creates music, there are several complications and a significant danger of infringement. To prevent a potential for the same in future, an action must be taken against the same. The major record labels, including Sony Music, Universal Music Group, and Warner Records, have filed a lawsuit against the AI startups Suno AI and Udio AI, alleging that they violated copyright in large quantities by utilizing their songs as training data for their models.[5] But the owners of AI companies claim that their technology is transformative, promotes and encourages use of AI. These AI platforms can reproduce elements of songs by Mariah Carey, James Brown etc. and can mimic the voices of artists such as ABBA etc. In Indian context, the producers of “Keedaa Cola” received a legal notice from the family of S P Balasubrahmanyam because they had unlawfully and without permission used AI to recreate the late singer’s voice. [6]
Protecting Artist’s rights in the age of AI
To safeguard the artist’s rights, they should follow some practices in order to protect their work from unauthorized replication or usage. The artists can:
- Get into a licensing agreement that includes AI-use restrictions.In those agreements there should be specific clauses mentioning heavy penalization if sounds/music is used by any AI platform without authorization. The licensed works should be actively monitored to ensure that they are in compliance with terms and take legal action against the violations/infringements.
- Use AI systems in other way round in protecting copyrighted works. These are the kinds of technologies that search digital platforms and the internet for unlicensed music usage. The automatic takedown warnings that are sent to the platforms where illegal copies are found will be facilitated by the use of AI capabilities.
- Royalties should be given to the music owner if an AI platform uses recordings that are protected by copyright and those tracks become renowned with the public.
Future Outlook: AI & the Music Industry
AI’s future in the music industry is poised to drive innovation, create new business models, and enhance creative possibilities, but on the other hand it also brings challenges that require careful navigation to ensure that the rights of human artists are protected and that the industry remains vibrant and inclusive. The use of AI is prompting both excitement over new possibilities and concern about potential job losses as it’s use by producers (as mentioned above) is raising concerns about human artists and other professionals in the industry as they are competent in making music, generating beats and tunes which was once the domain of music producers/artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be disastrous. As a result, it is leading to job displacement and polarization within the industry.
AI appears to be a harbinger of change as well as confusion, it is effecting several industries including Music. While the technology’s potential is immense, understandably leery of having their sounds instantly replicated with a few clicks. While the battle continues, we can only wait for the respective authorities to come up with new laws regarding the Copyrightable works and how AI can be governed in the same if such platforms use the protected works without consent of the owner.
[1]Artificial Intelligence.