Showing posts with label record companies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label record companies. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 14, 2023

YouTube to offer option to flag AI-generated songs that mimic artists’ voices; The Guardian, November 14, 2023

  , The Guardian; YouTube to offer option to flag AI-generated songs that mimic artists’ voices

"Record companies can request the removal of songs that use artificial intelligence-generated versions of artists’ voices under new guidelines issued by YouTube.

The video platform is introducing a tool that will allow music labels and distributors to flag content that mimics an artist’s “unique singing or rapping voice”.

Fake AI-generated music has been one of the side-effects of leaps forward this year in generative AI – the term for technology that can produce highly convincing text, images and voice from human prompts.

One of the most high-profile examples is Heart on My Sleeve, a song featuring AI-made vocals purporting to be Drake and the Weeknd. It was pulled from streaming services after Universal Music Group, the record company for both artists, criticised the song for “infringing content created with generative AI”. However, the song can still be accessed by listeners on YouTube."

Sunday, January 30, 2022

Is Old Music Killing New Music?; The Atlantic, January 23, 2022

Ted Gioia, The Atlantic ; Is Old Music Killing New Music?

"A series of unfortunate events are conspiring to marginalize new music. The pandemic is one of these ugly facts, but hardly the only contributor to the growing crisis.

Consider these other trends:...

When a new song overcomes these obstacles and actually becomes a hit, the risk of copyright lawsuits is greater than ever before. The risks have increased enormously since the “Blurred Lines” jury decision of 2015, and the result is that additional cash gets transferred from today’s musicians to old (or deceased) artists.

Adding to the nightmare, dead musicians are now coming back to life in virtual form—via holograms and “deepfake” music—making it all the harder for young, living artists to compete in the marketplace."

Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Second Circuit Shuts Down Resale of Digital Music Files in Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi, Inc., Lexology, December 18, 2018

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Taylor Swift Wants YouTube To Treat Artists More Fairly, Too; Huffington Post, 6/20/16

Sara Boboltz, Huffington Post; Taylor Swift Wants YouTube To Treat Artists More Fairly, Too:
"Taylor Swift, Sir Paul McCartney and U2 are among those set to join the music industry’s increasingly loud battle with the world’s largest music service: YouTube. The musicians hope to plead the case in a series of ads this week that it is time to reform a 17-year-old law known as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that they believe puts tech giants before musicians.
Enacted way back in 1998, the DMCA offers certain protections — sometimes called “safe harbor” — for websites hosting copyrighted content. Under the law, websites like YouTube can serve copyrighted music uploaded by ordinary users so long as the site takes it down when the rights holder asks. In an open letter to be published Tuesday in D.C.-based publications The Hill, Politico and Roll Call, dozens of artists and major record labels call for reforming the DMCA, according to multiple reports.
Many major record labels are currently involved in contract renegotiations with YouTube, or will be shortly, meaning the letter will make its debut at a key time. Those same labels believe that the DMCA gives big tech companies like YouTube a leg up in negotiating fees — meaning less revenue is making its way back to music creators. And that doesn’t make artists very happy, either. Music industry executives call that difference between actual profit from user-generated content sites and estimated potential profit a “value gap.” And they’re out to close it."

Friday, May 20, 2016

Do You Love Music? Silicon Valley Doesn’t; New York Times, 5/20/16

Jonathan Taplin, New York Times; Do You Love Music? Silicon Valley Doesn’t:
"Unfortunately, there is a sad history of undervaluing musicians in the United States. Terrestrial radio, a $17 billion industry, pays publishing rights (payments to songwriters) but has never paid artists or record companies for music. In addition, the satellite radio company, SiriusXM, pays below-market royalties, thanks to a giveaway it first wrested from Congress 20 years ago. Conglomerates like iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel Communications) and other online services like Pandora, which are required to pay artists for digital streams, have exploited federal copyright law to deny payments for work recorded before 1972 (songwriters are paid; performers are not). This means artists like Aretha Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald, Chuck Berry and John Coltrane never received a dime from AM/FM radio and or from many digital services for some of their greatest music.
The last meaningful legislation in this area was the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, which was based on the idea that creators should monitor the Internet for illegal copies of their works and give “notice” to websites and services to take pirated material down. Under the act’s “safe harbor” provisions, any service or site that makes a minimal effort to address these notices is immune from liability for piracy or theft."

Monday, December 8, 2014

Rare Dylan Recordings Set for Release in Copyright-Extension Bid; New York Times, 12/5/14

Allan Kozinn, New York Times; Rare Dylan Recordings Set for Release in Copyright-Extension Bid:
"Thanksgiving has come and gone, and there’s a nip in the air — no question about it, European Copyright Extension season is upon us.
Since 2012, when the European Union passed a revised copyright law, extending the copyright on recordings from 50 years to 70 – but only if the recording was published during its first 50 years – record companies have been exploring their vaults for potentially marketable material in danger of losing its copyright protection if it is not released."

Friday, January 6, 2012

New Lawsuit Means All Major Labels Are Suing Grooveshark; New York Times, 1/5/12

Ben Sisario, New York Times; New Lawsuit Means All Major Labels Are Suing Grooveshark:

"Grooveshark, a popular digital music service that is being sued for copyright infringement by three of the four major record companies, now has problems with the one big label that it has a licensing deal with.

On Wednesday, EMI Music Publishing filed suit against Grooveshark’s parent company, the Escape Media Group, for breach of contract, saying that since striking the deal in 2009, Escape has “made not a single royalty payment to EMI, nor provided a single accounting statement.”"

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Site to Resell Music Files Has Critics; New York Times, 11/14/11

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Site to Resell Music Files Has Critics:

"A legitimate secondhand marketplace for digital music has never been tried successfully, in part because few people think of reselling anything that is not physical. But last month a new company, ReDigi, opened a system that it calls a legal and secure way for people to get rid of unwanted music files and buy others at a discount.

The service has already drawn concern from music executives and legal scholars, who say it is operating in a gray area of the law. Last Thursday the Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major record companies, sent ReDigi a cease-and-desist letter, accusing it of copyright infringement.

John Ossenmacher, ReDigi’s chief executive, contends that the service complies with copyright law, and that its technology offers safeguards to allay the industry’s concerns that people might profit from pirated music."

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Sirius’s Move to Bypass a Royalty Payment Clearinghouse Causes an Uproar; New York Times, 11/6/11

Ben Sisario, New York Times; Sirius’s Move to Bypass a Royalty Payment Clearinghouse Causes an Uproar:

"SoundExchange, a nonprofit group, was founded in 2000 and is authorized by the United States Copyright Office to collect one kind of royalty for digital music. The royalty, the performance right for sound recordings, pays performers and record companies when their songs are played on digital streams like satellite radio and Pandora. (In a rule that has annoyed record companies and musicians for decades, terrestrial radio pays only songwriters and publishers.)"