AI Music, Explained with Spotify CEO
Show notes
When should artists get paid in a world with AI music?
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Artificial intelligence is changing how music gets made - and how musicians get paid. AI is letting people clone artists’ voices, create completely new songs as fake collaborations, generate lyrics in seconds, even produce full tracks just by typing in a few words. It’s all causing some to say AI will be “the death of music.”
Technology causes turning points in history. And I think we’re in one right now for music. The stakes are high: If we get this wrong, we could jeopardize how human musicians make money and art. But if we get it right, we have an opportunity to leap ahead in how we as humans get to express ourselves.
To really understand what’s happening with AI music, you need to understand how the music industry ALREADY works - and how it could be changing. In this video, I took a deep dive into that topic with the help of two people right in the thick of it: The artist Grimes and CEO of Spotify Daniel Ek.
Chapters:
00:00 What is happening with AI in music?
02:05 Why would we want AI music?
04:03 How are musicians using AI?
06:17 When should musicians get paid?
07:15 What is copying versus inspiration?
08:26 How does copyright work in music?
10:06 Should artists get paid for AI training on their music?
11:55 What happens when AI generates its own songs?
12:54 How could AI music be "huge if true"?
You can find me on TikTok here for short, fun tech explainers: https://www.tiktok.com/@cleoabram
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Bio:
Cleo Abram is an Emmy-nominated independent video journalist. On her show, Huge If True, Cleo explores complex technology topics with rigor and optimism, helping her audience understand the world around them and see positive futures they can help build. Before going independent, Cleo was a video producer for Vox. She wrote and directed the Coding and Diamonds episodes of Vox’s Netflix show, Explained. She produced videos for Vox’s popular YouTube channel, was the host and senior producer of Vox’s first ever daily show, Answered, and was co-host and producer of Vox’s YouTube Originals show, Glad You Asked.
Additional reading and watching:
Elf Tech, by Grimes: https://elf.tech/connect
Who Sampled, my favorite site to see sampled tracks: https://www.whosampled.com
Frank singing Lil jon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zoQeH2wQFM
Johnny Cash Barbie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKKGxySvaII
Linkin Park Pokemon: https://youtu.be/CuCUdQ3xrEk?si=wFaim8O86IUamItB
An A.I. Hit of Fake ‘Drake’ and ‘The Weeknd’ Rattles the Music World, New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/arts/music/ai-drake-the-weeknd-fake.html
The Music Industry Has an AI Problem, Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/05/02/ai-drake-heart-on-my-sleeve-and-cultural-appropriation/c236dbfc-e8f1-11ed-869e-986dd5713bc8_story.html
Spotify will not ban AI-made music, BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-66882414
Grimes Launches AI Software That Allows Anyone To Insert Her Voice Into Music, Hypebeast: https://hypebeast.com/2023/5/grimes-ai-software-elf-tech-voice-music
Vox: https://www.vox.com/authors/cleo-abram
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10108242/
Gear I use:
Camera: Sony A7SIII
Lens: Sony 16–35 mm F2.8 GM and 35mm prime
Audio: Sennheiser SK AVX
I used music from Lickd for this video:
Get Unholy (Instrumental) by Sam Smith, Kim Petras and over 1M + mainstream tracks here https://go.lickd.co/Music
License ID: 81a29AAvBJO
Get Don't Start Now by Dua Lipa and over 1M + mainstream tracks here https://go.lickd.co/Music
License ID: 2ZnbrkkMnz1
Get Paradise by Coldplay and over 1M + mainstream tracks
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