Symphonic Distribution has formed a partnership with AI management and licensing company Musical AI that will allow its users to become part of a licensed dataset used in AI training. Participation in the dataset is an option that Symphonic users must opt into, and participating artists can earn additional income for their contributions.
Musical AI's goal is to clean up what it calls the “Wild West of AI” by providing a way to track every time an AI model uses a particular song in the dataset, with the hope that this will help compensate the appropriate copyright holder for each time the task is used by the AI model. Symphonic is the first major rights holder to partner with Musical AI and the co-founder and COO of Musical AI Matt Adel he says his team is currently “being built[ing] a new performance-based and safety-based level for AI training for the benefit of all involved.”
The AI training process is one of the most controversial areas of the growing tech sector. To learn how to generate realistic results, generative AI models must be trained on millions, if not billions, of projects. Often, this includes copyrighted material that the AI company has not licensed or otherwise paid for. Today, many of the world's biggest AI companies, including ChatGPT creator OpenAI and AI music producers Suno and Udio, take the position that ingesting this copyrighted material is a form of “fair use” and that no compensation is required. Many copyright holders, however, believe that AI companies should obtain their consent before using their works and that they should receive some form of compensation.
Already, this issue has sparked major legal battles in the music industry. The big three music companies — Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music — filed a lawsuit against Suno and Udio in June, alleging that teaching about their copyrights without permission or compensation was a form of widespread copyright infringement. A similar argument was made in a 2023 lawsuit filed by UMG, Concord, and ABKCO against Anthropic for allegedly using their copyrighted lyrics in education without proper licenses.
According to a representative of the companies, one AI company, which wishes to remain anonymous, has already signed up to use the dataset associated with Symphonic, and in the future, the dataset will likely be used by more. Artists who wish to participate can only enter if they fully check their releases and records to ensure there are no rights issues.
The licenses made between AI, Musical AI and Symphonic companies will vary, but ultimately this license will stipulate that a certain percentage of the resulting revenue will go to the rights holders represented in the dataset. Musical AI will generate a performance report detailing how each song in the dataset was used by the AI company, and then the AI companies will either pay the rights holders directly or through Musical AI, depending on the format their agreement.
“Symphonic's catalog has clear value for AI companies that need both great music from passionate artists and a broad representation of genres and sounds,” says Adell. “We are thrilled to make them our first major rights holder partner.”
“We strive to make our services the most advanced in the business to support our artists. But any new technology should work for our artists and customers – not against them,” he adds Jorge Breafounder and CEO of Symphonic. “By partnering with Musical AI, we're unlocking a truly sustainable approach to productive AI that honors our community.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/symphonic-musical-ai-training-partnership/
