A national campaign against unlicensed AI music was supported by artists such as Mac DeMarco, seen here performing in Virginia Beach City in April, 2019.Brian Ach/Getty Images
In the latest battle between artificial intelligence and Canadian musical creators, performance rights organization SOCAN is joining forces with technology platform Musical AI to provide tools that allow creators to be compensated when their work is used in generative AI content.
On its website, Musical AI bills itself as a platform that allows musical rights holders to establish which – if any – parts of their catalogue can be used in AI content, and allows AI companies to attribute and license what they generate.
Through the partnership, Musical AI will use its platform to analyze AI content that has scraped or sampled copyrighted Canadian music, and create documentation that can license and attribute rights to AI-generated musical creations. Tools developed through the partnership will be available on an opt-in basis.
“If you think about all the ways that we typically license users of music, it’s always with the rights holders: the creators, the publishers, the composers, sharing in the financial benefits,” said Jennifer Brown, chief executive of SOCAN, or the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada. “If you’re generating revenue off the backs of creators, then there should be a revenue share in that.”
The partnership responds to continuing challenges in regulating AI models, many of which are alleged to have scraped and ingested copyrighted works so that users can make their own songs, images, videos and writing in recognizable styles. But it’s early days for the partnership, and some details remain unfinalized, such as exactly how the musical components used in AI content will be determined, and how the royalties will be paid out.
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Brown said Musical AI will need to provide “proof of concept on a wider scale” before the tools are finalized.
“Even if it’s not being disclosed now, we know that all that output is really copyrighted, and human-created songs that are building that. This is a really interesting experiment to work with Musical AI... and go, ‘Okay, let’s get ready for the future when we can actually license and pay out.’”
But the details, say some, will make or break the partnership, and whether it can do what it hopes for Canada’s creative sector, much of which is at a loss as to how to manage unauthorized AI use.
Catherine Moore, who teaches in the Music Technology & Digital Media Program at the University of Toronto, wonders about the “slivers” of music that have been used in AI-generated content, which may be harder to detect – and reimburse for – than a full sample. “I think what organizations such as SOCAN are looking for is, how do we identify that sliver?”
Moore also raises questions about what, if anything, could be done about the extensive creative material that has already been used in AI-generated content without authorization.
“The way that Musical AI makes the magic happen, as it were, is going to be the so-called secret sauce.”
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Others, such as Ottawa-based folk singer Lynn Miles, are skeptical about the music industry’s influence in the shadow of tech companies.
“I’ve seen the long journey of decline of royalties going to artists, especially when streaming services kicked in,” said Miles, who’s been performing and putting out records since the 1990s. “[AI] is just sort of another hit.”
Using an online search tool, Miles recently learned that 19 of her songs have been used in AI-generated music, a discovery she called “heartbreaking,” but not surprising. She said unless tech companies are on the hook for legal or monetary consequences, they will have little incentive to credit or compensate artists.
“SOCAN’s been going to parliament and court for years to try to change copyright law,” she said. “I think that’s a difficult fight. I wish them luck.”
Last year, Brown defended artists’ rights at the House of Commons and spearheaded a national campaign against unlicensed AI music that was supported by artists such as Mac DeMarco and Sarah McLachlan.
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“There’s other ways that we’re tackling this problem. At the same time that we’re looking at how we would work on this ourselves, we’re also going to government and saying AI companies also need to be responsible for transparency,” Brown said.
For some, the horse is already out of the gate, so to speak. Even if there was a way to track unauthorized sampling in AI-generated music and compensate artists, the music industry has been irrevocably changed by the role of technology and AI, said Matt Bergman, a long-time rock musician, songwriter and producer based in Ontario’s York Region.
“I think it’s a runaway train,” he said. “I’m not against using technology to record real sounds and stuff like that. But technology has pretty much decimated the music business since the year 2000.”
Bergman worries that even when someone seeks out original music from a specific artist, the proliferation of AI-generated impressions may change their expectations and listening habits over time.
“You can make the perfect-sounding song, but it’s soulless,” he said of AI-generated music. “The imperfections of art are the best part, and [AI] doesn’t leave any room for there to be any imperfections.”