artificial intelligence
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BERLIN — GEMA, the German performing rights organization (PRO), today sued OpenAI for copyright infringement in Munich regional court, alleging that the technology company used without permission lyrics from songs to which GEMA licenses rights. This makes GEMA the first PRO to file such a lawsuit, although it controls some rights that U.S. societies do not. This also seems to be the first case involving only lyrics; the case does not involve recordings. In its announcement, GEMA described the suit as a “model action,” aimed at clarifying copyright law in Germany, and potentially all of Europe.
Since OpenAI offers copyrighted song lyrics in response to prompts, GEMA is alleging that the company trained its software on song lyrics that it has the rights to license, so it is suing the company for violations of the making available and reproduction right. (Making available is a right under European law that in this case is roughly analogous to the right of public performance, or in this case public display. It’s also alleging two infringing reproductions – one to ingest the lyrics for training purposes and another when they are output.) In the U.S., PROs do not control mechanical rights, so they would not have the standing to file such a lawsuit.
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So far, most of the music business lawsuits involving AI companies have been over the ingestion of recordings, although that by definition would also involve the underlying compositions. But OpenAI is already facing a considerable amount of litigation, including a putative class action from authors, a lawsuit from The New York Times, and one each from online publishers and other newspapers. The issue in the U.S. is whether or not copying to train an AI qualifies as a “fair use” exception to copyright law. The record label cases against Suno and Udio will involve the same principle.
European copyright law provides “exceptions and limitations” to copyright, rather than fair use, and the 2019 Copyright Directive allows text and data mining unless rightsholders opt-out. In this case, however, GEMA has opted out for all of the works it licenses. (GEMA does not license the lyrics for all the songs in its repertoire, but the lawsuit involves ones for which it does.) This lawsuit aims to clarify the law, and it has the support of some big German songwriters, as well as their publishers.
“Our members’ songs are not free raw material for generative AI systems providers’ business models,” said GEMA CEO Tobias Holzmüller in a statement. “Anyone who wants to use these songs must acquire a license and remunerate the authors fairly. We have developed a license model for this. We are taking and will always take legal action against unlicensed use.”
The lawsuit comes as rightsholders around the world are becoming more concerned about how AI will affect the value of their works, as well as how they should be compensated for how it is trained. At the end of September, GEMA presented a licensing model for generative AI software that would compensate songwriters and publishers. It has also sent letters to AI companies stating they must license GEMA works in order to use them.
Since OpenAI both operates servers and makes content available in Germany, it will presumably have to operate according to German law. This seems clearer than the U.S. system, where fair use often involves considerable uncertainty. However, European countries do not offer rightsholders the opportunity to collect damages as high as they can get in the U.S.
A representative for OpenAI did not immediately return a request for comment.
Jerry Garcia‘s estate has partnered with AI voice company ElevenLabs to bring the late Grateful Dead guitarist, singer and songwriter’s AI-recreated voice to its Iconic Listening Experience on the ElevenReader app. Now, Deadheads using the app can hear Garcia’s voice read out audiobooks, e-books, articles, poetry, fan stories, PDFs and more in 32 different languages.
Garcia is the latest in a string of partnerships between ElevenLabs and famous estates. Already, the AI voice company has rolled out voice models for Judy Garland, James Dean, Burt Reynolds and Sir Laurence Olivier to its Iconic Listening Experience. According to a company spokesperson, ElevenLabs worked “in close collaboration with the Jerry Garcia Estate to ensure that the reproduction of Garcia’s voice was as authentic and true to his legacy as possible.”
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In addition to the ElevenReader, Garcia’s voice model will also be used in various upcoming projects associated with the Jerry Garcia Foundation. This could include narrated documentaries, audio art exhibits and more.
This announcement with the Garcia estate shows ElevenLabs taking another step towards infiltrating the niche of AI music. In May, the company’s head of design Ammaar Reshi gave a “very early preview” of an ElevenLabs AI music generator on X, formerly known as Twitter. For now, however, Garcia’s voice model is only available to read various texts.
The Garcia voice model is the latest instance of deceased or older musicians and their estates partnering with AI companies to market the artists’ catalogs and personas to the next generation of fans. Warner Music and the estate of “La Vie En Rose” singer Edith Piaf, for instance, partnered with an AI company to bring the late French singer’s voice back to life for an upcoming biopic, and last month, Universal Music Enterprises and Brenda Lee used AI to translate her Hot 100 No. 1 hit “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” into Spanish, enabling Lee, who is now 79, recreate the youthful tone of her voice from the time when she originally recorded the song.
“My father was a pioneering artist, who embraced innovative audio and visual technologies,” says Keelin Garcia, daughter of Jerry and co-founder and vp of the Jerry Garcia Foundation. “In the 1990’s, my dad introduced me to the computer, digital art, and video games. When we traveled on concert tour, we played on Game Boy. At home, we’d have fun playing on the Macintosh in the studio where my father created his first digital art, and housed his MIDI guitar. Now, as technological landscapes continue to expand, ElevenLabs AI Audio technology will offer fans the first opportunity to hear and stream a replica of my father’s voice reading their favorite books and other written content.”
“At ElevenLabs, we’re committed to preserving and celebrating cultural legacies while pushing the boundaries of technology,” said Dustin Blank, Head of Partnerships at ElevenLabs. “By bringing voices like Jerry Garcia to our platform, we’re not just enhancing our app – we’re creating new ways for people to experience content.This project has been a labor of love, and we couldn’t be happier with how Jerry’s voice has been recreated. It’s a beautiful thing to bring his sound to life again for both longtime fans and a new generation of listeners.”
ASCAP and SACEM are expanding their existing relationship into an alliance that will allow them to invest together in data technology and collect directly from streaming services in more foreign markets, plus launch an AI task force and encourage collaboration among songwriters. Since 2022, SACEM has collected money from online services in foreign markets for ASCAP […]
Universal Music Group has entered a strategic partnership with AI music company KLAY. To date, KLAY has not yet released any of its products, but the AI start-up is said to be developing what it calls a “Large Music Model,” dubbed “KLayMM” which will “help humans create new music with the help of AI,” says […]
A new Spanish-language version of Brenda Lee‘s holiday hit “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” was released Friday (Oct. 25), using “responsibly-trained” artificial intelligence to make the translation. A perennial hit for 66 years and counting, “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” is the biggest song to have been translated into a new language using AI.
Released via MCA Nashville/Universal Music Enterprises (UMe), “Noche Buena y Navidad” was revamped by four-time Latin Grammy award-winning producer Auero Baqueiro. Baqueiro first translated the lyrics from English to Spanish, trying to match the same phonetics and rhyming structure that made sense for Spanish while maintaining the original lyrical themes from the original English version. Then, he enlisted Chile-born, L.A.-based vocalist Leyla Hoyle to sing the vocals in Spanish in a way that would capture Lee’s unique voice patterns, including intricacies like phrasing, tone, and breaths.
Baquiero ultimately kept the original music and background vocals and, once Hoyle recorded the raw Spanish vocals, used AI to map Lee’s voice over Hoyle’s performance. The translation was made possible using SoundLabs AI’s MicDrop technology, a “responsibly-trained” AI audio plugin that allows users to swap their voices out with another voice or instrument.
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The new AI-powered translation arrives just in time for the holiday season. Despite being released back in 1958, Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is more popular than ever. Last year, her song hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time and stayed in the top spot for three straight weeks.
Lee is not the first artist to use AI to translate her work. In May 2023, HYBE debuted a new K-pop artist, MIDNATT, who used AI to release his first single in six different languages. In November 2023, indie-pop artist Lauv released an AI translation of his single “Love U Like That” in Korean as a nod to his strong fanbase in that country. Similarly to “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” a bilingual human songwriter, Kevin Woo, translated the “Love U Like That” lyrics to Korean. After Woo sang through the song, Lauv’s voice was planted on top of his vocals using the AI voice platform Hooky.
Finally, country icon Randy Travis made headlines in May 2024 by using AI voice technology to record a new single, “Where That Came From,” after his vocal abilities were greatly diminished in a near-fatal stroke a decade before.
The Spanish-language version of “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” is the first release from Universal Music Group (UMG) and SoundLabs’ partnership, which was announced in June 2024. The AI company was founded by software developer and electronic artist BT and is said to be “responsibly” trained. The partnership is part of UMG’s “responsible AI initiative,” as laid out by the company’s CEO/chairman Lucian Grainge, which involves “forg[ing] groundbreaking private-sector partnerships with AI technology companies.”
“I am so blown away by this new Spanish version of ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,’ which was created with the help of AI,” said Lee in a statement. “Throughout my career, I performed and recorded many songs in different languages, but I never recorded ‘Rockin’’ in Spanish, which I would have loved to do. To have this out now is pretty incredible, and I’m happy to introduce the song to fans in a new way.”
“We are thrilled to work with Brenda Lee to making ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ the first classic song translated responsibly into another language with the power of AI, added UMe president/CEO Bruce Resnikoff. “We are also very excited about the possibilities of this emerging technology and look forward to harnessing its capabilities to introduce new material created by and approved by our artists.”
“The minute you hear Brenda Lee’s iconic voice on ‘Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree’ you know it’s the official start of Christmas,” said UMG Nashville chair/CEO Cindy Mabe. “The global hit has touched people all over the world and kept this young 13-year-old spirit of Christmas captured in a time capsule. We are all so excited for this new Spanish version created with the help of AI from that legendary voice and approved by Brenda Lee herself to help celebrate this enduring, timeless classic.”
Thousands of musicians, composers, actors and authors from across the creative industries, including ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, all five members of Radiohead and The Cure’s Robert Smith, have signed a statement opposing artificial intelligence companies and developers using their work without a license for training generative AI systems.
Signatories also include all three major record labels — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group — as well as a wide range of music trade organizations representing record labels, publishers and creators from the U.S., Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Austria, Mexico, the U.K., Ireland, Sweden and Brazil.
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“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted,” reads the single-sentence statement posted at aitrainingstatement.org.
Within several hours of going live on Tuesday (Oct. 22), the statement had been signed by more 11,500 people from across the creative arts, including actors Kevin Bacon, Sean Astin and Rosario Dawson; authors James Patterson, Ian Rankin, Ann Patchett and Kate Mosse; and music artists Billy Bragg, Max Richter and Norwegian singer-songwriter Aurora.
The global campaign was conceived and organized by Ed Newton-Rex, a British composer now based in the U.S., who has formerly held several senior executive roles at AI technology and music companies.
In 2010, Newton-Rex founded Jukedeck, a U.K.-based AI music generation company that provided music for video, TV, radio, podcasts and games. It was acquired by TikTok parent company ByteDance in 2019.
Following the acquisition, Newton-Rex, who is also a choral composer, went on to run ByteDance’s European AI Lab before becoming head of audio at tech firm Stability AI. He quit that role last year in protest of the company’s belief that it is acceptable to use copyrighted work without a license on “fair use” grounds without permission from rights holders.
Newton-Rex tells Billboard that several trade groups are supporting his campaign and helped gather signatories but have not provided funding for the initiative.
The statement comes amid increasing concern from creators and rights holders over how their works are being exploited by AI developers for generative training purposes — and how to rein those tech companies in.
Earlier this year, the three major record companies filed lawsuits against AI music firms Suno and Udio alleging the widespread infringement of copyrighted sound recordings “at an almost unimaginable scale.”
In the U.K., the government is soon to launch a consultation on how to regulate AI technology and is understood to be exploring a scheme that would allow AI companies to legally scrape copyright-protected content from artists and rights holders unless they “opt out.”
Creator groups say that any “opt out” solution would be highly damaging to the music business and would prefer an “opt in” scheme that grants rights holders the ability to approve the use of their works by AI companies.
Tech giants Google and Microsoft are meanwhile calling for the British government to soften the country’s copyright laws for AI firms and introduce an exception for text and data mining of copyrighted works, including music, for commercial purposes. Such a premise was raised by the previous Conservative government in 2022 but was abandoned a year later following strong criticism from musicians and creators.
“Copyright serves to safeguard the value of human creativity, while also driving value in the wider music and creative industries,” said Sophie Jones, chief strategy officer at U.K. labels trade body BPI, one of the organizations supporting Newton-Rex, in a statement. “If the U.K. is to remain a global creative powerhouse in an increasingly competitive world,” she continued, “the government must ensure that it is respected and enforced.”
Those views were echoed by the Association of Independent Music (AIM), which has also signed the statement.
“To achieve the benefits of AI for creativity, we urge policymakers not to lose sight of the need for strong copyright protections,” said AIM interim CEO Gee Davy in a statement on Tuesday (Oct. 22). She added that it was “vital” policymakers protect artists and rights holders “to ensure a healthy future for those who create, invest in and release music across genres and all communities, regions and nations of the U.K.”
Tuesday’s statement is just the latest salvo in the battle between generative AI companies and rights holders. In May, Sony Music released a statement warning more than 700 AI companies not to scrape the company’s copyrighted data, while Warner Music released a similar statement in July. That same month in the U.S. Senate, a bill dubbed the No FAKES Act, which aims to protect creators from AI deepfakes, was introduced by a bipartisan group of senators.
Grammy-winning producer Timbaland has taken on a new role as a strategic advisor to Suno, an AI music company that can generate full songs at the click of a button.
News of the deal comes four months after the three major music companies collectively sued Suno (and competitor Udio) for alleged infringement of their copyrighted sound recordings “at 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 formalizes his involvement with Suno. The partnership will be kicked off with Timbaland previewing his latest single “Love Again” exclusively on Suno’s platform.
Then, Suno users will be able to participate in a remix contest, which will include feedback and judging from Timbaland himself and over $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.
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Additionally, as part of being a strategic advisor to Suno, Timbaland will assume an “active” role in the “day-to-day product development and strategic creative direction” of new generative AI tools, says the company in a press release.
Suno is one of the most advanced generative AI music companies on the market today. Using simple text prompts, users can generate voice, lyrics and instrumentals in seconds. On May 21, Suno announced that it had raised $125 million in funding across multiple funding rounds, including investments from including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross, Matrix and Founder Collective. Suno also said it had been 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.
Though many have marveled at its uncanny music-making capabilities, the music business establishment also feared that Suno might have been trained on copyrighted material without consent. (At the time, Suno declined to state what materials were in its training data, and whether or not it included copyrighted music).
Then, Billboard broke the news on June 20 that the major labels were weighing the idea of a lawsuit against Suno and Udio, alleging widespread copyright infringement of their sound recordings for the purposes of AI training. After the lawsuit was officially filed four days later, Suno and Udio then hired top law firm Latham & Watkins, and filed lengthy responses to fire back at the labels. Suno noted it was “no secret” that the company had ingested “essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet” and that it was “fair use” to use these files.
“When I heard what Suno was doing, I was immediately curious,” says Timbaland of the partnership. “After witnessing the potential, I knew I had to be a part of it. By combining forces, we have a unique opportunity to make A.I. work for the artist community and not the other way around. We’re seizing that opportunity, and we’re going to open up the floodgates for generations of artists to flourish on this new frontier. I’m excited and grateful to Suno for this opportunity.”
“It’s an honor to work with a legend like Timbaland,” says Mikey Shulman, CEO of Suno. “At Suno, we’re really excited about exploring new ways for fans to engage with their favorite artists. With Timbaland’s guidance, we’re helping 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 ahead!”
The newest upsurge in artificial intelligence technology is streamlining the tedious tasks that run beneath the glamor of the industry, from simplifying marketing strategies to easing direct fan engagement to handling financial intricacies. And as this ecosystem matures, companies are discovering unprecedented methods to not only navigate but thrive within these new paradigms.
In our previous guest column, we explored how the wave of music tech startups is empowering musicians, artists and the creative process. Now, we shift our focus to the technologies revolutionizing the business side of the industry, including artist services, ticketing, fan engagement and more.
Music marketing has continued to evolve and become increasingly data-driven. A natural next step after creation and distribution, marketing involves creating assets for a campaign to effectively engage with the right audience. Traditionally, this has been a resource-intensive task, but now, AI-driven startups are providing efficiencies by automating much of this process.
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Startups like Symphony and un:hurd are now providing automated campaign management services, handling everything from social media ads to DSP and playlist pitching from a single automated hub. Some of these platforms even incorporate financial management tools into their offerings.
“Having financial management tools integrated into one platform allows for better revenue management and planning,” says Rameen Satar, founder/CEO of the financial management platform BANDS. “Overall, a unified platform simplifies the complexities of managing a music career, empowering musicians to focus more on their creative work and succeed in the industry.”
One hot topic as of late has been superfan monetization, with multiple startups creating platforms for artists to engage with and monetize their fan bases directly. From fan-designed merchandise on Softside to artist-to-fan streaming platform Vault.fm, which recently partnered with James Blake, these platforms provide personalized fan experiences including exclusive content, NFTs, merchandise, early access to tickets and bespoke offerings.
Drew Thurlow and Rufy Anam Ghazi
Courtesy Photo
“The future of fan engagement will be community-driven. No two fan communities are alike, so engagement will be bespoke to each artist,” says Andy Apple, co-founder/CEO of superfan platform Mellomanic. “Artists will each have their own unique culture, but share one commonality: Every community will align, organize and innovate to support the goals of the artist.”
Managing metadata and accounting royalties through the global web of streaming services is another area seeing innovation. With nearly 220 million tracks now registered at DSPs, according to content ID company Audible Magic, startups are stepping in to offer solutions across the music distribution and monetization chain. New tools are being developed to organize and search catalogs, manage track credits and splits, handle incomes, find unclaimed royalties, and clean up metadata errors.
”While we have well-publicized challenges still around artist remuneration, there are innovation opportunities across the value chain, driving growth through improved operations and new models,” says Gareth Deakin of Sonorous Global Consulting, a London-based consultancy that works with labels and music creators to best use emerging technologies.
Another issue that some AI companies have stepped in help solve is preventing fraud — a significant concern stemming from the ease of music distribution and the sheer volume of new music being released every day. Startups are helping labels and digital service providers address this problem with anti-piracy, content detection and audio fingerprinting technology. Beatdapp, for instance, which developed groundbreaking AI technology to detect fake streams, has partnered with Universal Music Group, SoundExchange and Napster. Elsewhere, MatchTune has patented an algorithm that detects AI-generated and manipulated audio, and a few others are developing tech to ensure the ethical use of copyrighted material by connecting rights holders and AI developers for fair compensation. Music recognition technology (MRT), which also utilizes audio fingerprinting technology, is becoming a prominent way to identify, track and monetize music plays across various platforms, including on-ground venues and other commercial spaces.
In the live music industry, there has been minimal innovation in ticketing, especially at the club level. That’s starting to turn around, however, as new technologies are emerging to automate the tracking of ticket sales and counts, thereby helping agents and promoters reduce manual workloads.
RealCount is one such startup that helps artists, agencies and promoters make sense of ticketing data. “We see RealCount as a second brain for promoters, agents and venues, automating the tracking of ticket counts and sales data from any point of sale,” says Diane Gremore, the company’s founder/CEO. Other exciting developments are taking place in how live events are experienced virtually, with platforms like Condense delivering immersive 3D content in real time.
Drew Thurlow is the founder of Opening Ceremony Media where he advises music and music tech companies. Previously he was senior vp of A&R at Sony Music, and director of artists partnerships & industry relations at Pandora. His first book, about music & AI, will be released by Routledge in early 2026.
Rufy Anam Ghazi is a seasoned music business professional with over eight years of experience in product development, data analysis, research, business strategy, and partnerships. Known for her data-driven decision-making and innovative approach, she has successfully led product development, market analysis, and strategic growth initiatives, fostering strong industry relationships.
The ASCAP Lab, ASCAP’s innovation program, has announced this year’s cohort for their AI and the Business of Music Challenge. Featuring CRESQA, Music Tomorrow, RoEx, SoundSafe.ai and Wavelets AI, these start-ups will take part in a 12-week course, in partnership with NYC Media Lab, led by the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, to receive mentorship and small grants to develop their ideas.
As part of the initiative, the start-ups will receive hands-on support from the ASCAP Lab, as well as ASCAP’s network of writer and publisher members, to help them optimize their products for the music creator community.
While last year’s cohort of companies focused on AI for music creation and experience, the 2024 AI and the Business of Music Challenge is much more focused on commercial solutions that can help the music industry better manage data and improve workflows.
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ASCAP Chief Strategy and Digital Officer Nick Lehman says of the 2024 cohort: “ASCAP’s creator-first, future-forward commitment makes it imperative for us to embrace technology while simultaneously protecting the rights of creators. The dialogue, understanding and relationships that the ASCAP Lab Challenge creates with the music startup community enable us to drive progress for the industry and deliver on this commitment.”
Meet the ASCAP Lab Challenge teams for 2024 below:
CRESQA: An AI social media content assistant designed for songwriters and musicians that automates the process of social media strategy development and helps generate fully personalized post ideas and schedules for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Shorts, Facebook and more.
Music Tomorrow: Analytics tools that monitor and boost artists’ algorithmic performance on streaming platforms, using AI for advanced audience insights and automation that improve an artist’s content discoverability, listener engagement and team efficiency.
RoEx: AI-driven tools for multitrack mixing, mastering, audio cleanup and quality control, designed to streamline and enhance the final steps of the creative process by delivering a professional and balanced mix with ease.
SoundSafe.ai: Robust, state-of-the-art audio watermarking using AI to enhance security, reporting and the detection of real-time piracy and/or audio deepfakes.
Wavelets AI: Tools for artists, labels, copyright holders, content distributors and DSPs that help reduce IP infringement by detecting AI vocals in music.
The Warner Music Group (WMG) has struck a new multiyear licensing deal with Meta, Billboard has learned. The partnership, which covers both Warner’s recorded music and Warner Chappell publishing operations, will be across all of Meta’s platforms — Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Horizon and Threads — and will also include WhatsApp for the first time, Billboard […]