Warner Music Group The company has sent letters to tech companies declaring that its content can only be used to train AI with the company's permission.
According to Warner's letter (read the full letter here), “All parties must obtain an express license from WMG to use any creative work owned or controlled by WMG, or to link to or incorporate such creative work in connection with the creation of datasets, as input to machine learning or AI techniques, or for the purposes of training or developing machine learning or AI techniques (including by automated means).”
Warner's move, which follows a letter sent by Sony Music Group in May to around 700 AI developers and digital service providers (DSPs), signals the potential for a common strategy to flourish among major music companies in tackling AI.
Sony has notified these companies that it is formally “opting out” of using its proprietary content to train artificial intelligence models.
Warner says this includes, but is not limited to, “copying, distributing, publishing, ripping, scraping, crawling, mining, recording, modifying, extracting or creating derivative works” of the content.
The letter added that Warner will “take all necessary steps to prevent infringement or other violations of the creative works and rights of our artists and songwriters.”
In the cases of both Warner and Sony, the “opt-out” notices are a response to European Union regulations that allow “the copying and extraction of lawfully accessible works” for data mining, unless the owners of those works expressly opt out of their content being used in this way.
“We will take all necessary steps to prevent infringement or other violations of our artists' and songwriters' creative works and rights.”
Warner Music Group
This “opt-out rule”, passed by the EU into law in 2019, was recently adopted as part of the EU’s AI Law, the democratic world’s first comprehensive piece of legislation regulating the development and use of AI technologies.
Such opt-out rules are a sort of comfort to the music industry, which has many calling for “opt-in” rules that would mean the law would mean that copyrighted material can't be used to train AI unless the copyright holder gives permission.
Such rules would remove the burden of protecting copyright from copyright holders and place the burden on AI developers to ensure they comply with copyright law in training their AI models.
“An opt-out system would fundamentally undermine copyright protection by shifting the burden of obtaining licenses away from users,” National Association of Music Publishers (NMPA) said in a filing with the U.S. Copyright Office last year:
However, the opt-out rule only applies to AI companies operating or providing services in the European Union. The United States and other jurisdictions have not enacted laws regarding the use of copyrighted material in training AI, leaving copyright holders to pursue the issue through the courts.
Last month, there was a significant development on this issue. The record companies owned by the three major music companies Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group– Sued AI music generation platform Snow and audio There is suspicion of copyright infringement in training the AI model.
The complaint, filed in U.S. Federal Court, included sheet music showing striking similarities between music created by Suno and Udio and copyrighted works by the following artists: Michael Bublé, Mariah Carey, James Brown, B.B. King, Abba And that The Beach BoysSuch.
This lawsuit is said to be the first by a music record company, but publishers have filed copyright lawsuits against AI developers in the past, most notably in Universal Music Publishing Group, Abco and Concorde For AI developers Anthropological.
In responses and filings with the U.S. Copyright Office, AI companies argue that using copyrighted works to train AI should be a “fair use” exception to copyright law.
Music companies and their legal teams vehemently oppose this, arguing that AI developers with technology that replicates copyrighted works, or whose products compete with music companies in the marketplace, should not be granted a “fair use” exemption to use copyrighted works.
So far, U.S. courts have not ruled on the question of whether training an AI with copyrighted works constitutes fair use.
“Artists and songwriters [AI]”They should benefit from participating. If they want protection, that should be their right too.”
Robert Kinkle, Warner Music Group
CEO of Warner Music Group Robert Kinkle Warner has spoken out on the issue of AI on a number of occasions, and has made it clear that while it sees the technology as having the potential to improve the creative process for artists and generate new revenue streams, artists must retain the right to choose whether or not their music is used in any way by AI.
“Our position on AI is simple: if artists and songwriters want to leverage AI, they should benefit from participating. If they want to be protected, that should be their right,” Kinkel said. M.B.W. The end of last year.
Now that both Sony and Warner have had the opportunity to make a statement under EU law banning the unauthorised use of their intellectual property to train AI, one question arises: Will Universal Music Group be next?Global Music Business
