Grammy award winning producer Timbaland has taken on a new role as a strategic advisor to Suno, an artificial intelligence music company that can create full songs at the touch of a button.
News of the deal comes four months after the three major music companies collectively sued Suno (and competitor Udio) for allegedly infringing copyrighted recordings “on an almost unimaginable scale.”
According to a press release from Suno, Timbaland has been a “top user” of the platform for months, and this announcement makes his involvement with Suno official. The collaboration will kick off with Timbaland previewing his latest single 'Love Again' exclusively on Suno's platform.
Suno users will then be able to enter a remix contest, featuring commentary and judging from Timbaland himself and more than $100,000 in prizes for winning remixes. Timbaland will also release the top two remixes of “Love Again” on streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and more.
Additionally, as part of Suno's strategic advisory, Timbaland will take an “active” role in the “day-to-day product development and strategic creative direction” of new AI production tools, the company says in a press release.
Suno is one of the most advanced AI music production companies on the market today. Using simple text messages, users can create vocals, lyrics and instruments in seconds. On May 21, Suno announced that it had raised $125 million in funding across multiple funding rounds, including investments from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Matrix and Founder Collective. Suno also said it is working closely with a team of advisors, including 3LAU, Aaron Levie, Alexandr Wang, Amjad Masad, Andrej Karpathy, Aravind Srinivas, Brendan Iribe, Flosstradamus, Fred Ehrsam, Guillermo Rauch and Shane Mac.
Although many have admired his incredible music-making abilities, the music business group also feared that Suno may have been trained in copyrighted material without his consent. (At the time, Suno declined to say what material was contained in the training data and whether or not it included copyrighted music.)
Then, Bulletin board broke the news on June 20 that the major labels were floating the idea of a lawsuit against Suno and Udio, alleging widespread copyright infringement of their recordings for AI training purposes. After the suit was officially filed four days later, Suno and Udio then hired top law firm Latham & Watkins and filed lengthy responses to fire the labels. Suno noted that it was “no secret” that the company had absorbed “virtually all reasonable quality music files accessible on the open Internet” and that it was “fair use” to use those files.
“When I heard what Suno was doing, I was immediately curious,” says Timbaland of the collaboration. “After seeing the potential, I knew I had to be a part of it. By joining forces, we have a unique opportunity to make AI work for the artist community, not the other way around. We are seizing this opportunity and will open the floodgates for generations of artists to flourish in this new frontier. I am excited and grateful to Suno for this opportunity.”
“It's an honor to work with a legend like Timbaland,” he says Mikey ShulmanCEO of Suno. “At Suno, we're really excited to explore new ways for fans to engage with their favorite artists. Guided by Timbaland, we help musicians create music at the speed of their ideas—whether they're just starting out or already selling out stadiums. We couldn't be more excited for what's next!”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/timbaland-strategic-advisor-ai-music-company-suno/