AI generated music is not protected by copyright, at least in the US, since copyright can only affix to works created by humans (the "human authorship requirement").[1][2] Without copyright protection, there is no "economic value" -- at least directly tied to the songs themselves. AI generated songs are not paid royalties at e.g. The Mechanical Licensing Collective for US streaming use.[3]
1. lots of established law and case law (at least in the US), this is already a well-settled problem and folks have the tools and proper venue to bring infringement claims. Yes, federal copyright infringement litigation is prohibitively expensive for many issues. There is a now a "small claims court" for smaller issues. [1]
2. Those works cannot be copyrighted (at least in the US). [2]. And hey, someone already tried copyrighting every song melody [3]
This is probably a somewhat unpopular opinion on HN, but it is where many of the artists I work with are generally trying to get to. Consent, compensation, and credit.
It depends, but yes, usually. Post-1978, the author of a work is also the copyright owner as soon as the work is fixed in a "tangible medium of expression" (written down, recorded, dictated, etc.). The exception to this is when the work was created as a "work for hire" (WFH) [1] for an employer. The rules around what constitutes a bonafide WFH are governed by agency law in the US. The primary court case in this area is The Community For Creative Non-Violence v. Reid which outlines a fairly high bar for a work to be considered a true WFH (it asks questions like: did you go to an office where the employer told you what to do and how to create it, did the employer provide you materials, did the employer pay you as a salaried employee rather than a contractor, how were you treated tax-wise and benefits-wise, etc.). That said, as the copyright owner at the moment of fixation, you can absolutely assign that copyright in writing to anyone you'd like. So functionally, there is usually a backup clause saying something like: "this is a work for hire for us, but, in the event it's deemed not a work for hire, you hereby assign the copyright to us anyway."
Royalty rate increased to $0.12/copy as of January 1, 2023 for songs under five minutes in length (the rate increases from there for longer songs). [1][2]
Subscriber here. Just a note to say this is a beautiful, helpful, and well thought out in-depth tool for planning (particularly love the scenario modeling). While my financial updates tend to only be on a ~monthly schedule, I often pop in more frequently simply for design inspiration. Thank you Kyle.
> Spotify also does nothing to promote and pay independent artists, they actually charge most independent musicians (even the ones not making profit) to be displayed on their platform rather than paying royalties, which is a pretty much giant ponzi scheme.
Sure. In an infringement lawsuit involving a fair use defense, courts will apply the "four prong" test [1] to determine whether or not such use is indeed fair use under copyright law. The first of the four prongs, the "purpose and character" of the use, is also known as "transformativeness." The Goldsmith/Warhol ruling (to simplify) said that Warhol's changes to Goldsmith's photograph were not sufficiently "transformative" even though they contained new expression (adding orange color etc.) because the end result effectively competed with the original photograph and therefore did not qualify as a fair use.
Right, your backwards movie example would fail the fair use test too. Nothing's really added, there's no new expression, it competes with the original, etc.
I testified to the US Copyright Office this morning on AI in their roundtable session on AI and music[1]. A good portion of the focus of this panel was on whether copyrighted inputs (in this case, sound recordings and musical compositions) being fed into AI models for training purposes could plausibly constitute a fair use under existing US copyright law.
Some of the comments here are missing the context of the recent (a week or so ago) Supreme Court decision in the Goldsmith/Warhol case[2], in which the Court ruled that transformativeness is not dispositive in and of itself in the context of a fair use defense to a copyright infringement claim. Of course, this has not been put to the test in the courts in the context of AI training yet, but it seems fairly clear that this ruling would likely extend to AI training on copyrighted works.
We (rightsholders in the music industry) hope to come to win-win licensing arrangements with the AI community and allow access to our songs for AI training purposes if the artist/writer so desires. There are some early talks in progress. Cautiously optimistic. Japan's approach seems short-sighted and desperate.