I test platforms specifically to see how they handle copyright. Today, I spent the day with legal advisors to discuss the latest on the AI Gen situation of commercially released music that happens faster than any human can create and is saturating the field with highly redundant slop.
In general I’m pro AI because I see it as a tool among others, but I’m uncomfortable with producers who use gender mismatched cloned vocals as if they were instrumentals. I’m less offended when girls use male cloned vocals, because in my opinion, in order to achieve balance and equality, women should get a pass on that, but as usual, most of the time it is the opposite. Imagine a dude sitting on his couch eating chips and “singing” all day with female vocals. Isn’t that reprehensible? It is to me for some reason. It is now the norm and some AI producers who source and tweak artificial female vocals have already signed with major labels, but at the same time I see producers’ stuff get taken down for precisely that, and they retroactively get demonetized.
Also, the saturation of certain styles makes it nearly impossible to monetize them because at this point some loops and beats have been so overused that they can’t be copyrighted again. In other words, they’re copies of copies of copies of the same redundant funk and RnB stuff that’s been going around since the 60’s or 70’s. These samples exist in billions of songs and yeah, this shit gets actively demonetized at the moment.
I’m known to change my mind a lot depending on the day. I love taking risks, but I’m also known to divest at a whim which has resulted in litigation in the past. It’s nice to gamble but when it’s time to get the hell out, I’m out. It is very intuitive and unpredictable. I can’t explain it or plan for it. The current landscape of sound is very compatible with how I work since the only predictable element is that things will change, my mind is going to shift, algorithms are going to shift, and another sure thing is that a lot of shit is going to get taken down. We can’t know which shit precisely and why, because the future is fluid, and so should be we.
Funniest part in this mayhem is that even the human musicians who use 100% “organic” instruments (and who get on my nerves just as much as the obsessive-compulsive AI folk) ALSO get flagged for detection of “undisclosed” artificial stuff in their music. Well, they didn’t disclose it because they did it “organically”, the slow way, playing a little crappy synth sample for hours to get it right, and still they get flagged? Yup, some algorithms will tell you that a synth is a synth. The technological revolution from the 80’s, 90’s gets ID’s as AI these days.
That being said, everyone can be boring and redundant and it appears that the algorithms cannot always make the difference between a boring human or a boring bot, they apparently just sound the same kind of boring.
I personally find AI generated tracks more original, but that’s likely due to algorithmic curation for me specifically based on the way I interact with music in general. I already have a natural boring-filter in my ear that functions more or less like those algorithms. I don’t care how you made the music, I either like it, or I side-swipe. It takes me a few seconds in average. On rare occasions, I would cancel songs due to objectionable lyrics, but most of the time, I know from the start, I’m even more subjective than the algorithms.
As for Suno, the best ever platform for sound on this planet: Suno-generated content is already flagged on several platforms. Even if you own commercial rights to your output, it may end up being blocked on TikTok and elsewhere. If not today, maybe before the end of the year.
If you don’t have commercial Suno rights and you try to monetize you will be detected and then you won’t be allowed to submit more tracks for the time being. Happens to several producers who tried to scam the system. Indeed, there are accounts who spew out 4000 tracks a month! If I were an algorithm I would start removing those accounts first. No need to listen, it is impossible to be that productive. The quantity alone signals abuse.
I was surprised to learn that many musicians have tried to give Suno artist credit due to the vocals. It is extremely bizarre that this happens on such a scale. It shows a profound lack of understanding of copyright and even music per se. Obviously, these people get flagged and they get barred from re-uploading.
Another surprising thing I learned is that if you sample ambient sound in your music, you will get demonetized. It brought back some memories (of ahem litigation). Ambient sound recording is a synonym of “intrusion upon seclusion” to put it mildly. Sure a helicopter sound, sirens, here and there shouldn’t be at issue, but I suspect privacy violations are the main concern, so that shit now gets retroactively deplatformed and can result in account blocks. Isn’t that amazing!
Some popular distributors have started quietly and retroactively removing entire catalogues, which of course captures human-made music and falsely flagged material. How fascinating is this? It somehow confirms that slop cannot be distinguished from human output. The chaos is real.
Now, I’m really curious if my own cloned vocals will get removed. AI can really help with speech improvement and fixing your “accent” in different languages. If my own cloned vocals get flagged, I will simply have to get off the couch and re-record my vocals the hard way.
Ultimately, the best thing is to only release stuff you can truly perform yourself. There is more to music than just releasing large quantity and volume. We’re not potato growers. You must find the time to make videos and promote the tracks, and only keep a sustainable catalogue.
