🔵 Big Tech's march on popular culture continues

Surely now the question has to be "when will the industry unite against a common threat?"

I have written a few times lately about my agreement with a theory that Silicon Valley is almost a cult now, with a singular shared belief that everything needs to be reliant on technology. It sounds a little tinfoil hattish, I appreciate, but as time passes, I only find that theory to be validated all the more.

Culture and art stands in the way of Big Tech - largely, I feel, because the wonks in these companies are defeated and perplexed by “cool”.

Ryan Broderick once wrote in his excellent Garbage Day newsletter that the thing Silicon Valley feared more than anything else was teenage girls. Why? Because they simply could not understand how they think, and therefore could not manipulate them into thinking, for example, that their own AI-created music might be better than Taylor Swift’s.

Music, as one constituent part of culture as we know it, is most definitely under fire. The jubilation regarding Suno’s new funding round only underlines this. Much is being made of the funding round being the biggest for a music company since Spotify, as if there’s any way to actually compare the two.

For me, Suno feels like a novelty. Doubtless it could churn out solid work (and please, don’t be the 40th person to point out that the BBL-Drizzy track sampled an AI loop!), but generally, it feels (and sounds) like the music you might hear when you open one of those novelty greeting cards. I used it the other day to make a jokey track about the onerous nature of booking ads, and it churned out something so painfully close in style and sound to Kacey Musgraves (albeit, a shitty replica thereof) that I was only stunned that more rights holders aren’t moving to sue the platform. If that music hasn’t been trained on copyrighted works, I’ll eat my hat.

This is where we find ourselves now. The entire Silicon Valley ethos of “do it first and ask for permission later” is running out of all control.

Another fine example appeared with the news that OpenAI definitely didn’t, no way, nuh-uh, train AI on Scarlett Johansson’s voice and then use it for their Sky AI assistant for ChatGPT. The similarities are just accidental, the company claims, despite it being abundantly clear that Sam Altman was so in thrall to Johansson that only hours before the launch of GPT4-o he even tweeted the name of the very movie that featured the actress as an AI bot.

The levels of gaslighting here are almost as biblical as the sheer arrogance with which AI companies feel they can simply ransack all art and culture to create something that, in time, it hopes we will all pay for.

Someone recently commented to me that it would take a war to unite many factions that do not agree on something. That brings us back to another continual issue I’ve been labouring of late: the failure of Trade Associations (TAs) to come together and make a united stand against this very large, very real threat.

Music Ally, in its cheeky summary of all the different TAs who have issued AI principles or guidelines (when covering WIN’s announcement of its own AI principles - see below), only summarises the issue here. Big Tech must be looking at the music industry and laughing all the way to the bank. As long as we all keep squabbling about whose principles on AI are the “real” ones, nothing will happen and AI will keep abusing copyright, trampling all over art and generally moving to a position where it might have a genuinely good run on decimating art and culture to a hitherto unforeseen level.

I would argue AI is the music industry’s next war. TAs will not solve it at present though; there are too many, all jockeying for attention. Everyone is fiddling whilst Rome burns, and at this rate, unless something is done soon, precedents will have been set and Big Tech will not be answering to anyone for its pillaging of popular culture.

At the most basic level there is a simple premise being asserted here, namely that it is absolutely OK to copy something that someone else put time, money and creative effort into, and then have a system learn that with a view to creating more works like it. The thing being copied could be music, or it could be Scarlett Johansson’s voice, or a work of art, or a body of writing. Or indeed many other things.

As an industry, it is well past time that we collectively stood up to challenge that notion, and it should be done with a united voice. Trade Associations should take note as the bodies speaking up for this wonderful (though often dysfunctional) industry of ours. Yes, this is a complex issue, but if more is not done to come together, we will never make progress. Please, let’s change that, and soon.

Have a great evening,

D.

🎶 listening to “Le Noise” by Neil Young. I’m a big NY fan, but keeping up with his output can be a challenge, and I’ll confess that this one passed me by. When I read the record described on The Quietus as Young being “a one-man Crazy Horse that’s apparently been fed on a diet of Earth 2, Aidan Baker, Tom Carter, Noveller, Jesu and King Tubby” however, I made a beeline for it. Wonderful stuff, and that description of it is perfect.

📺 watching “Acid House report 1988 Shoom Trip Spectrum Phuture Clink Street London” on YouTube. Care for a trip (er, in all senses) back to the good old days of acid house? Then look no further. This is where YouTube can be a truly wonderful thing.

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Stories from the Music Industry:

Live Nation breakup? Stock falls, DOJ Ticketmaster lawsuit report

Ticketmaster merged with Live Nation in 2010 in a deal that was reviewed and approved at the time by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the same entity that news reports say will accuse Live Nation of monopoly practices in a lawsuit this week. The rumored lawsuit was reported by a number of outlets citing anonymous sources, including Bloomberg, the New York Times, and the Financial Times.

👆🏻Hot take: long overdue, I think most would agree. That said, this is only a plan to attempt to split the business up, not the fait accompli itself, so let’s see how this pans out.

ABBA's Björn Ulvaeus on AI: 'To prepare, we must act now'

“AI will bring the biggest revolution the creative sector has seen. To prepare, we must act now. We should not sit on our hands waiting to see how things evolve,” wrote Cisac chair (and ABBA co-founder) Björn Ulvaeus in his foreword to the report. “We cannot let tech companies and policy makers sit at the decision-making tables while the creators are left outside the room. On the contrary, we must raise our voices so they are heard by governments at the highest level. We must be coordinated and united, looking for global solutions.”

👆🏻Hot take: I agree. Sitting back on this one - or blithely issuing ‘principles’ alongside 20 other trade associations (see below) - is not taking action, and right now, action is what’s desperately needed.

Beat Check: Music rightsholders reach their 'or what?' moment with AI

Sony Music is telling AI companies that it’s open to discussing licensing agreements, and while the ‘or what?’ may not be spelled out explicitly in its letter, it’s setting things up for lawsuits against companies who it believes have trained their models on its content, but who refuse to provide the requested data or enter into those licensing talks. (And by going so public with the letter, Sony Music will surely have to follow through on that, at least with some companies, to ensure its threats aren’t seen as empty.)

👆🏻Hot take: it is heartening to see Sony finally digging in on this, and I’d imagine we have all manner of lawsuits getting ready to be served imminently. Action is badly needed now.

Independent music body WIN sets 'principles for generative AI'

WIN’s principles join *deep breath* UK Music’s position paper on AI; the Council of Music Makers’ five fundamentals for music AI; the Human Artistry Campaign’s seven core principles for AI applications; indie publishing body IMPF’s ethical guidelines on generative AI; seven principles on creative rights in AI proliferationfrom a group of industry organisations; UMG and Roland’s seven (it’s the magic number!) principles for music creation with AI; and a recent report from British politicians setting out what ‘pro-creative industries’ legislation should look like.

👆🏻Hot take: I feel Music Ally’s snipe, listing all the other trade associations who have also issued guidelines, sadly says it all. That’s not to denigrate WIN I might add - but if you are Google or any other Big Tech company, I’d wager you’re looking at this hot mess of “principles” and laughing all the way to the bank.

AI music generator Suno raises $125m, valuing company at $500m

Suno, the AI-driven music creation app that has been getting attention for its ability to create unnervingly good music, has raised USD $125 million in a Series B funding round. Among the investors in Suno are VC firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, which has also invested in Stability AI and Everyrealm, the metaverse firm backed by music stars like Nas and Lil Baby.

👆🏻Hot take: much is being made of Suno raising so much (I believe it is the second highest raise after Spotify all those years ago), but in the grand scheme it seems relatively normal somehow. Either way, Suno to me just remains a novelty for the most part. I might have odd moments of the monkeys and typewriters crafting a hit, but that’s all it will be.

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Notable stories from the world of tech:

Scarlett Johansson told OpenAI not to use her voice — and she’s not happy they might have anyway

Scarlett Johansson says that OpenAI asked her to be the voice behind ChatGPT — but that when she declined, the company went ahead and created a voice that sounded just like her. In a statement shared to NPR, Johansson says that she has now been “forced to hire legal counsel” and has sent two letters to OpenAI inquiring how the soundalike ChatGPT voice, known as Sky, was made.

👆🏻Hot take: see editorial above. The absolute contempt for copyright and identity (among other things) by AI, but also by Big Tech in general, is now past a critical point IMO. Something has to be done, and soon.

AI chatbots’ safeguards can be easily bypassed, say UK researchers

Guardrails to prevent artificial intelligence models behind chatbots from issuing illegal, toxic or explicit responses can be bypassed with simple techniques, UK government researchers have found. The UK’s AI Safety Institute (AISI) said systems it had tested were “highly vulnerable” to jailbreaks, a term for text prompts designed to elicit a response that a model is supposedly trained to avoid issuing.

👆🏻Hot take: another slightly worrying sign around just how much AI is actually being safeguarded.

Sonos app update borks users' fave features and worse

Sonos has alienated chunks of its customer base after releasing a revamped app for its music boxes that strips users of often-used features, including making it nearly "impossible" for the vision impaired. The redesigned app landed on May 7 sporting a new home screen, and was intended to give easier access to improved product set-up and controls via a "refreshed UI design."

👆🏻Hot take: one to file under the “how not to” folder when it comes to app relaunches. This one has been a disaster for Sonos; others should learn from it.

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Looking for something else to read? Here you go:

Billie Eilish is making her album launch eco-friendly

The rise of the album variant has the artist working to cut down on waste.

👆🏻Hot take: this article perfectly highlights the absurdity of Billie Eilish’s comments around this multiple formats issue. You might summarise it thus: it’s not OK to release multiple versions of albums to greedily fleece fans (i.e. like Taylor Swift did) but it’s totally OK to release multiple versions of albums to greedily fleece fans (like Billie Eilish just has) when it’s “eco friendly” formats. Give me a break already.

‘It’s basically inaccessible without a phone’: are kids losing their love for music?

Children used to obsessively put CDs and 7-inches on repeat, but streaming means they need digital devices and parental permission to play music. And there’s little being done to help

👆🏻Hot take: I struggle to agree with this article. It seems to be writing from a world in which radio, CDs, vinyl and more simply don’t exist, such that kids under a certain age never hear any music, ever. Quite strange.

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