Sony Music warns AI companies: Don't collect our data

Sony Music warned tech companies not to mine the recordings, compositions, lyrics and more “for any purpose, including the education, development or marketing of any [artificial intelligence] system,” in a statement posted on the company's website on Thursday (May 16).

In addition, according to a letter received by Advertising signSony Music is in the process of reaching out to hundreds of companies developing AI production technology, as well as streaming services, to deliver this message directly.

The letter notes that “unauthorized use of SMG Content to train, develop, or commercialize AI systems deprives SMG Companies and SMG Talent of control over and appropriate compensation for uses of SMG Content, conflicts with normal exploitation of these works, unjustifiably prejudices our legal interests and violates our intellectual property and other rights.”

GenAI models require “training” — “a computational process of deconstructing existing projects in order to mathematically model how [they] work,” as Google explained last year in comments to the US Copyright Office in October. “By breaking apart existing projects, the algorithm develops the ability to infer how new ones should be put together.” Through inference, these models can eventually generate reliable-sounding hip-hop beats, for example.

Whether a company needs permission before undertaking the training process on copyrighted works is already hotly debated, leading to lawsuits in several industries. In October, Universal Music Group (UMG) was among the music companies that sued AI startup Anthropic, claiming that “in the process of building and operating AI models, [the company] illegally copies and distributes vast quantities of copyrighted works.”

While these cases will likely set precedent for AI training practices in the US, the courts typically move at a glacial pace. Meanwhile, some tech companies appear ready to train their genAI tools on large volumes of unlicensed recordings.

“Based on recent filings by the Copyright Office it is clear that the technology industry and profit-making financial investors would like governments to believe a very distorted view of copyright.” Dennis Cookerpresident of Sony Music's global digital business, he said during the Insight Artificial Intelligence Forum in Washington, DC in November. “One in which music is considered fair use for educational purposes and in which certain companies are allowed to appropriate the entire value produced by the unlicensed creative sector and build huge businesses on it without paying the creators concerned anything.”

While Kooker was adamant during his testimony that training for genAI music tools “cannot be without consent, credit and compensation to artists and rights holders,” he also pointed out that Sony has “about 200 active conversations that they take place with start-ups and established players. for the manufacture of new products and the development of new tools”.

“These conversations range from tools for creative or marketing assistance, to tools that potentially enable us to better protect artist content or find it when it's being used in an unauthorized way, to brand new products that have never been released before,” he continued.

Sony's letter to genAI companies this week ended on a similar note: “We invite you to work with us and the music industry stakeholders we represent to explore how your AI Act copyright policy can be developed in a way that ensures that our rights and those of SMG Talent are respected.”