ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE threatens the music industry, harms US artists and could take away jobs, the Recording Industry Association of America has warned.
Earlier in October, the RIAA submitted a review of notorious markets to the US Trade Representative’s office, outlining a list of online markets it believes are causing “significant harm to the US music industry” through copyright infringement.
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In their report, first reported by Torrent Freak, the record association outlined several different torrent websites, stream ripping sites, music download platforms, and cyberlockers as active members of the threat.
Most importantly, the RIAA highlighted artificial intelligence-based “extractors/mixers” as also detrimental to the industry.
“There are online services that claim to use artificial intelligence (AI) to extract, or rather copy and/or generate, the vocals, instrumentals or part of the instrumentals (a musical strain) from a sound recording, master or remix a recording in such a way that it is very similar or nearly as good as the reference tracks of selected well-known recording artists,” the RIAA wrote.
“To the extent that 13 these services or their partners train their AI models with our members’ music, such use is unauthorized and violates our members’ rights by making unauthorized copies of our members’ works.”
“In any event, the files distributed by these services are either unauthorized copies or unauthorized derivative works of our members’ music.”
The services designated by the RIAA are:
- Acapella extractor
- remove vocals
- songmaster
In particular, the RIAA has criticized the platform’s use of “unauthorized copies” of vocal or instrumental recordings.
The Oct. 7 report calls for the services to be included in the 2022 Notorious Markets List, claiming that they “engage in unlicensed copying, creation of derivative works, streaming and/or distribution/downloading or any other… engage in unauthorized distribution of sound recordings that materially infringe upon the rights of U.S. corporations and/or also engage in circumvention activities that violate 17 USC § 1201.”
The RIAA emphasized that these services “harm US artists, songwriters, record labels and music publishers” through the reported copyright infringement and “artificially distort the market value of music, reducing compensation for creators and owners of licensed services.” ”
In the report, the record association also pointed to a 2021 report by the Department for Professional Employees that claimed digital theft — like illegal downloads and streaming — killed at least 290,000 jobs annually “in the film and television industry” and 29 Billions of dollars in lost revenue alone.”
The use of artificial intelligence in the creative industries has received mixed reviews from professionals in the fields, as many worry about their jobs.
“Why do we pay an artist $1,000 when we can have $1,000? [images] choose for free?” Professional artist Danger told CNN last week. “People are cheap”
