Sony Music, home to artists like Harry Styles, Adele, and Beyoncé, has made a bold move in the music industry’s ongoing battle against tech groups. The company has issued warning letters to over 700 artificial intelligence developers and music streaming services worldwide, prohibiting the use of its music for AI training.
The letter, seen by the Financial Times, explicitly forbids AI developers from using Sony’s music and opts out of any text and data mining of its content for purposes such as training, developing, or commercializing any AI system. This includes companies developing AI systems like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Suno, and Udio.
In addition to AI developers, Sony Music is also sending separate letters to streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple. The company is asking these platforms to adopt “best practice” measures to protect artists and songwriters and their music from scraping, mining, and training by AI developers without consent or compensation. Sony has requested these platforms to update their terms of service, making it clear that mining and training on its content is not permitted.
Sony Music acknowledges the significant potential and advancement of artificial intelligence but insists that unauthorized use in the training, development, or commercialization of AI systems deprives Sony of control over and appropriate compensation. The company is open to licensing its music to AI developers but wants to reach a fair price for doing so.
This move is Sony Music’s attempt to prevent melodies, lyrics, and images from copyrighted songs and artists from being used by tech companies to produce new versions or train systems to create their own music. Sony Music is concerned that its music has already been exploited and wants to establish a clearly defined legal position that would be the first step to taking action against any developer of AI systems it considers to have exploited its music.
Read more: arstechnica.com