Millions of Copyrighted Songs Were Fed to AI Music Generators – Now There's Proof
www.gadgetreview.com
Millions of copyrighted songs trained AI music generators, and new searchable databases from The Atlantic now confirm which tracks were used.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48284303

A sum that would bankrupt these companies and set an important precedent.

Yesterday, there was news of publishers doing the same. Let’s see what other industries follow.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
    4·
    2 days ago

    I’m not optimistic. In these fights, the deeper pockets usually win.

    The AI industry is throwing around such incredible amounts of money right now, it would be possible to solve this problem by just buying the record labels outright. The big AI companies could do the following:

    1. Form a consortium, call it the “AI Industry IP License Alliance” or similar.

    2. Have the leading AI companies offer massive loans to the organization, assembling a war chest of say, $50 billion.

    3. The consortium then buys up rights holders one at a time. The largest record label in the US, Universal Music group, has a market cap of about $34 billion. It would cost $17 billion to buy a controlling stake of Universal.

    4. After a record label, a book publisher, etc. is bought up, have the label sign extremely generous very long-term contracts with the big AI companies. Offer the same cheap access equally to all the AI companies to avoid antitrust concerns.

    5. After a long-term contract is signed, slowly sell of the shares of the company and give up ownership of it. The AI companies might have to sell their shares for slightly less than they bought them for, but that would likely be an acceptable loss.

    They could just churn through entire industries like this. Just buy up companies that own IP, lock the companies into 20 year contracts licensing their IP for a pittance to the AI industry. Then dump them back on the market. The same war chest could be used again and again and again. Eventually rights holders would just start offering generous terms at the mere threat of such a hostile takeover.

    The real methods used would likely be more subtle than this direct buy-out approach. But in these fights the deeper pockets tend to win. Or alternately, maybe the AI companies only do this if they start getting massive judgments against them. If Universal Music gets a $50 billion judgment against OpenAI, rather than paying it, it will be cheaper for OpenAI to simply buy Universal, agree to settle the settlement for a pittance, dump it back on the market, and take whatever loss they have to.