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Category: Artist News
@JonesJourno: A male-dominated team does not reflect society’: why are only 5% of music producers women?
A good music producer facilitates a studio environment that allows an artist to plunge into the depths of their soul, and cleverly shapes the sound of their music – a bad one, meanwhile, can halt a promising career. But in 2023, 70 years on from the dawn of rock’n’roll, this tremendous power still lies in the hands of an overwhelming majority of men.
@musicbizworld: UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP RESPONDS TO ‘FAKE DRAKE’ AI TRACK: STREAMING PLATFORMS HAVE ‘A FUNDAMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY TO PREVENT THE USE OF THEIR SERVICES IN WAYS THAT HARM ARTISTS’
The track, heart on my sleeve, credited to the ‘artist’ ghostwriter, has racked up more than 230,000 plays on YouTube, and more than 625,000 plays on Spotify.
In addition to AI-replicated vocals of Drake, the track – a seemingly original composition – also features AI-replicated vocals of The Weeknd’s voice.
Both Drake and The Weeknd release their (real life) records via UMG and its Republic Records.
Said UMG in a statement to MBW in the wake of today’s news: “UMG’s success has been, in part, due to embracing new technology and putting it to work for our artists–as we have been doing with our own innovation around AI for some time already.
“With that said, however, the training of generative AI using our artists’ music (which represents both a breach of our agreements and a violation of copyright law) as well as the availability of infringing content created with generative AI on DSPs, begs the question as to which side of history all stakeholders in the music ecosystem want to be on: the side of artists, fans and human creative expression, or on the side of deep fakes, fraud and denying artists their due compensation.
@musicbizworld: Spotify’s Mission Statement is Preposterous. Its latest announcements prove it.
[It is not enough for a Silicon Valley company to have a good idea or a compelling product or service. No, no–like Elizabeth Holmes the convicted felon, or Google, who probably should be convicted felons, these people have to convince themselves that they are saving the world. Literally. This is true no matter how ordinary their accomplishments.
Like the self-hypnotist, they convince themselves that their powers of commerce are transcendent and otherworldly. History begins with them. Never should their revelatory accomplishments be compared to building a better mousetrap.
Spotify is no different, and they will damn well prove that their mission statement has no less than the predictive power of the oracle of Balaam. But of course they fail, flesh and blood being what it is in this time before the Singularity.
Tim Ingham fries up Spotify’s “mission statement” in this must read expose. But realize this–you can rest assured that if Daniel Ek didn’t write this claptrap himself, he definitely must have approved it. So if you ever wondered whether Ek had a grip on reality, it appears that his grip is weak. But you know, in the beginning was the word, et cetera, et cetera.]
In Spotify’s words, Loud & Clear exists for one reason above any other: “[To] provide a valuable foundation for a constructive conversation”.
Thing is, it’s not the surface-level data on Loud & Clear – the data that Spotify wants you to pay attention to – that makes for the most “constructive conversation” about the music industry and where it’s headed.
To get to the good stuff, you’ve got to dig a little deeper than that….
Taken at face value, these figures point to the ever-widening base of artists earning decent payouts from the world’s largest subscription streaming platform.
Spotify obviously likes that narrative a lot. As its Loud & Clear site boasts: “More artists are sharing in today’s thriving music economy compared to the peak of the CD era.”
Thing is, any half-credible analysis of these numbers has to take into account how they’ve changed over time.
And when we start treading this path, these figures begin to take on a different nature – one that flies in the face of Spotify’s wonderfully earnest, but laughably silly, mission statement.
National Association of Voice Actors: AI/Synthetic Voice Rider–Don’t lose your voice forever
It’s like the antichrist without the morals. Voice over actors are being attacked by purveyors of artificial intelligence so that the actor’s voices can be re-used without consent or compensation even if they did consent or at least didn’t object. Not only that, but voices can be used to train AI to speak in a completely different context. This is way worse that Netflix composer buyouts.
Check your name/image/likeness clauses folks–voice actors will not be the only ones caught up in the AI hellscape.
AN OPEN LETTER FROM NAVA AND THE VOCAL VARIANTS TO THE VOICE OVER COMMUNITY
AI or Synthetic Voices are on the rise. We’re a group of concerned voiceactors working with union and non-union performers alike to make sure we don’t lose our voices forever by signing away our rights to various companies. Long story short, any contract that allows a producer to use your voice forever in all known media (and any new media developed in the future) across the universe is one we want to avoid.
So we have put together some things we can all do to avoid the decimation of our industry.
Read the post on NAVA Voices site and stay in touch with your unions.
Artist Rights Watch--News for the Artist Rights Advocacy Community 