Country star Lainey Wilson and president/CEO of the Recording Academy Harvey Mason voiced their support for federal regulation of AI technology at a hearing held by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet in Los Angeles on Friday (February 2).
“Our voices and likenesses are indelible parts of ourselves that have allowed us to showcase our talents and grow our audiences, not just digital kibble for a machine that can copy without consent,” Wilson said during the her comments.
“Artists and creators I speak to are concerned that there is very little protection for artists who see their own name or likeness or voice used to create AI-generated material,” added Mason. “This misuse hurts artists and their fans.”
“The problem of artificial intelligence is clear to all,” he later continued. “This is a problem that only Congress can address to protect all Americans. For this reason, the academy is grateful for the introduction of the No AI FRAUD Act,” a bill announced in January that aims to create a federal framework to protect voice and likeness.
However, the star of the audition did not come from the music industry. Jennifer Rothmanlaw professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, offered an eloquent challenge to a key provision of the No AI FRAUD Act, which would allow artists to transfer rights to their voice and likeness to third parties.
It's easy to imagine this arrangement being popular with labels, who have historically built their major catalogs by taking control of artists' recordings in perpetuity. However, Rothman argued that “any federal right in an individual's voice or likeness should not be transferred away from that individual” and “there must be significant limits on licensing.”
“Allowing another person or entity to possess the likeness or voice of a living person in perpetuity violates our fundamental and constitutional right to liberty,” he said.
Rothman cleverly invoked the music industry's long history of permanent deals — a history that has upset many artists, including stars like Taylor Swift, over the years — as part of her argument.
“Imagine a world in which Taylor Swift's first record label acquired perpetual rights to the young Swift's voice and likeness,” Rothman explained. “The label could then play Swift's voice over and over again on new songs she never wrote and have AI renditions of her performance and approve the songs and videos, even perform them holograms on tour . In fact, under the proposed No AI Fraud Act, the label could sue Swift herself for violating her right of publicity if she used her voice and likeness to write and record new songs and perform them publicly . That is the turbulent world the draft bills would create.”
(Rothman's reference to Swift was just one of many at the hearing. Representative Kevin Keeley [R – CA] addressed the debate over whether or not the singer could make it to the Super Bowl from her performance in Tokyo, while Rep. Nathanael Moran [R – TX] joked, “I haven't mentioned Travis Kelce's girlfriend once during this deposition.”)
Rothman pointed out that the ability to transfer voice or likeness rights in perpetuity potentially “threatens ordinary people as well”: “They may unwittingly sign away those rights as part of the online Terms of Service” that exist on so many platforms and are almost never read . . In the music industry, there is a similar problem that is already causing problems for several young artists who sign up to distribute their music through an online service, agree to the Terms of Service without reading them, and later discover that they have unknowingly locked the music them in some kind of agreement. In an AI world, this problem could be magnified.
Rothman's comments put her at odds with the Recording Academy. “In this particular bill, there are certain safeguards, there is language that says attorneys must be present and involved,” Mason said during the questioning. (Although many young artists can't afford counseling or can't find good counseling.) “But we also believe that families should have the freedom to make different business arrangements.”
Mason's opinion was shared Agent Matt Gaetz (R – FL). “If tomorrow I wanted to sell my voice to a robot and let that robot say whatever it wanted to say to the world, and I wanted to take the money from that sale and go buy a sailboat and not open never the internet again, why shouldn't I have the right to do that?' asked.
In addition to Rothman, Mason and Wilson, there was one other witness at the hearing: Christopher More, who serves as president of the Software & Information Industry Association. It spoke little and mostly reiterated that its members wanted the courts to answer key questions about artificial intelligence. “It's really important that these cases are litigated thoroughly,” Mohr said.
This answer did not satisfy Representative Glenn Ivy (D – M.D.), former judge. “It can take years to sort this all out, and you can have conflicting decisions from different courts in jury trials,” Ivey noted. “What should we do to try to fix this now?”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/tech/congress-artificial-intelligence-no-ai-fraud-act-hearing-1235596807/