Sony Tech Can Identify Original Music in AI-Generated Songs (nikkei.com) 40
Sony Group has developed a technology that can identify the underlying music used in tunes generated by AI, making it possible for songwriters to seek compensation from AI developers if their music was used. From a report: Sony Group's technology analyzes which musicians' songs were used in learning and generating music. It can quantify the contribution of each original work, such as "30% of the music used by the Beatles and 10% by Queen," for example.
If the AI developer agrees to cooperate for the analysis, Sony Group will obtain data by connecting to the developer's base model system. When cooperation is not attainable, the technology estimates the original work by comparing AI-generated music with existing music. The AI boom has sparked numerous cases in which AI developers are accused of using copyrighted music, video and writing without permission to train machines. In the music industry, AI-generated songs using the voices of well-known singers have been distributed online. The Japanese company thinks the technology will help create a system that distributes revenue generated by AI music to original songwriters based on their contribution.
If the AI developer agrees to cooperate for the analysis, Sony Group will obtain data by connecting to the developer's base model system. When cooperation is not attainable, the technology estimates the original work by comparing AI-generated music with existing music. The AI boom has sparked numerous cases in which AI developers are accused of using copyrighted music, video and writing without permission to train machines. In the music industry, AI-generated songs using the voices of well-known singers have been distributed online. The Japanese company thinks the technology will help create a system that distributes revenue generated by AI music to original songwriters based on their contribution.
Whatâ(TM)s next? (Score:2, Insightful)
An artist says, âoeMy primary influences are The Beatles and Queenâ and they get a bill from Sony?
Re: (Score:2)
Shit works according to the laws that the representatives you sent in your legislature voted for.
Typically it is how many notes are there that are like the original or somesuch.
I vaguely recall the number was four, but I could be wrong.
Your tune matches this, court awards damages.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, this isn't how AI generation works anyways. You can certainly find bands that a particular song is most similar to (whether human or AI generated music), but AI models don't work by collaging random things together. The sound of a snare drum is based on all snare drums it has ever heard. The sound of a human voice is based on all voices it has ever heard. The particular genre might bias individual aspects toward certain directions (death metal - far more likely to activate circuits associated with
Back catalog valuation drop (Score:2)
The major companies owning tens of thousands of songs are going to have to revalue their back-catalog soon.
The typical royalty stream for each song is already dropping sharper due steaming vs the older radio and media sales model.
AI music will quicken that royalty drop as a larger percentage of people will be content to listen to background "just OK enough" AI sludge music generated on the fly.
Since the back catalog and royalties are valued as a lifetime stream of future payments and net present value to to
Should Bach and Haydn be compensated ... (Score:3)
... for their contributions to Mozart and Beethoven?
Re:Should Bach and Haydn be compensated ... (Score:4, Funny)
Sony should be...
What about human-generated songs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing is completely original, everything is influenced by things that came before. What happens if they run it on human-generated music? Do they expect Oasis to pay royalties to The Beatles because they are clearly an evolution of the earlier band's style?
Very much this. (Score:3)
I came here to make exactly this point, and with exactly the same example.
Could I be sued?
Re: (Score:2)
The article gives no detail about how the method works. Reading between the lines and making some slightly informed but mostly speculative guesses, it probably assumes the music is AI generated. It isn't meant to be an AI detector. You give it a song that you know was created by AI, and it tries to figure out what training data went into making it.
If that's true, it would be interesting to give it human generated music. Would it tell you who the artist was most influenced by? Or would it focus more on
Re: (Score:2)
The article gives no detail about how the method works.
You're assuming it does. This is presumably from the same Sony whose content ID software has at various times reported half a minute of silence and people walking around as infringing their music copyrights.
It doesn't matter if it is right. What matters is that it has the force of law, and once accused, you have to work to get your content back online.
3 note riff? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
so they trained their AI (Score:2, Interesting)
Not how any of it works (Score:4)
Sony wants in on this here because they'd get to set the rules.
Within a decade every new band, with or without AI would be triggering a percentage derived number and paying royalties or, more likely, ceasing to exist.
Re: (Score:3)
More likely they want in on this because they are a content creator and do not want their IP leaked to AI-Bots without compensation. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Re: (Score:2)
You're absolutely right, but unfortunately that doesn't mean topham is wrong about how it will be used, anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Right, they only want biological neural nets trained on their music. Sure.
AI may have a use after all... (Score:3)
Perhaps the flurry of litigation for shit like this will make it obvious how little value the big music labels add to the industry with the advent of the ability for literally anyone to self publish with a very low barrier to entry (other than litigation from rent seekers like Sony Music).
Not how this works (Score:4)
No that is not how this works. This is an attempt to extort anyone using the 4/4 time signature because some fuzzy algorithm decided 4/4 was owned by the studios.
Re: (Score:2)
No that is not how this works. This is an attempt to extort anyone using the 4/4 time signature because some fuzzy algorithm decided 4/4 was owned by the studios.
Talk about a statement that would give Rick Beato a stroke.
This is like a watchmaker stealing the number “7”, forcing every other watchmaker to simply skip that number when counting time. The Timey McTimeface response should be making everything from the ketchup commercial song to the porn theme song, in 4/4 time. Then relentlessly mock those trying to sue a planet for it.
"30% of the music used by the Beatles" (Score:3)
I wonder what Sony's tech makes of any track by The Rutles, or Bill Bailey's "Unisex Chip Shop" song (which I'd been reminded of only yesterday).
Can't wait (Score:3)
How much Willie Dixon is Led Zeppelin? (Score:2)
Give it some human-generated music. When I listen to Black Sabbath, I am pretty sure I can hear some Cream, but I've long wondered what else?
Re: (Score:2)
You know, this makes me kind of curious. Because any given band will have some position in the latent space, so you can find how close two bands are to each other via the cosine distance between their latent positions.
Open source music models aren't as advanced as the proprietary ones, but I bet you could still repurpose them to do this.
Parent Company of Orchard Music Group says what? (Score:3)
Yeah... how many bogus copyright strikes has their underling doled out over the years to devour the incomes of YouTubers that otherwise had public domain music to use in their videos?
As much of a fan of Sony as I want to be, they can pound sand on this one.
Making their best effort to be creepy (Score:3)
Not to say anything of the endless amount of billable hours which will be generated by the quasi-infinite number of frivolous lawsuits potentially clogging up the courts. This is so dystopian, it hurts. Why? Because why stop at current releases for that matter, when this system can also be used to retroactively sue people for 'appropriating' material on music that was created in the past. And even worse, it could be used to selectively sue certain enemies, and give a pass to other friendly entities.
EARLY CANDIDATE FOR THE 2026 ENSHITTIFICATION AWARDS. (you pick the category, but I'd suggest "Most Adversarial Use of AI")
Source code leaked! (Score:2)
The source code for their amazing technology has been leaked:
if content.isMusic() then {
content.containsCopyrightedMaterial = True
} else {
raise DontCareAboutCookingRecipesException
}
I mean come on, just about everything is a derivation of something else. This just makes it like youtube moderation where "the computer said it, so it must be true".
Enemies, with Benefits. (Score:2)
Sony Group has developed a technology..making it possible for songwriters to seek compensation..
Thought I’d modify that first statement slightly so Sony can remember the original fucking plot.
The MAFIAA formerly known as Industry, is offering assistance with financial compensation now? How thoughtful. The concept might have actually saved a starving artist or two if it were this prioritized back when humans were making music.
Not even sure how to feel now. I’ll probably know when the music producer is replaced with AI.
Melancholy Elephants, by Spider Robinson (Score:3)
This needs to be killed, with prejudice.
https://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm [baen.com]
How can they be sure? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Axis of Awesome is guilty of copyright infringement on a massive scale. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Pretty simple really (Score:2)
All your music are belong us (Score:2)
It will identify anything that rhymes or has a few notes the same as their property.
It Is Fun To Watch The Big-Boys Fight (Score:2)
Still not conclusive (Score:2)
Reap the whirlwind (Score:2)
This nonsense is going to backfire. Not only does copyright not control usage of works beyond performances / reproductions rendering statements akin to the following irrelevant:
"The artificial intelligence boom has sparked numerous cases in which AI developers are accused of using copyrighted music, video and writing without permission to train machines."
By using AI models not trained on anything rights holders control with a repeatable workflow computer generated music can survive challenges that would ot
Rent Seeking (Score:1)
Sony's AI says "Pay Sony royalties..." (Score:2)
Sony's AI says "Pay Sony royalties... because you may have learned something from something that Sony owns copyright on."
Copyright is a limited right to profit in order to reward/encourage creating things of value to culture/science/art. Learning is fair use. Training an AI is a transformative use akin to human learning.
Money Grab (Score:1)