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Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced new legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday (April 9) which, if passed, would require AI companies to disclose which copyrighted works were used to train their models, or face a financial penalty. Called the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act, the new bill would apply to both new models and retroactively to previously released and used generative AI systems.
The bill requires that a full list of copyrighted works in an AI model’s training data set be filed with the Copyright Office no later than 30 days before the model becomes available to consumers. This would also be required when the training data set for an existing model is altered in a significant manner. Financial penalties for non-compliance would be determined on a case-by-case basis by the Copyright Office, based on factors like the company’s history of noncompliance and the company’s size.
Generative AI models are trained on up to trillions of existing works. In some cases, data sets, which can include anything from film scripts to news articles to music, are licensed from copyright owners, but often these models will scrape the internet for large swaths of content, some of which is copyrighted, without the consent or knowledge of the author. Many of the world’s largest AI companies have publicly defended this practice, calling it “fair use,” but many of those working in creative industries take the position that this is a form of widespread copyright infringement.
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The debate has sparked a number of lawsuits between copyright owners and AI companies. In October, Universal Music Group, ABKCO, Concord Music Group, and other music publishers filed a lawsuit against AI giant Anthropic for “unlawfully” exploiting their copyrighted song lyrics to train AI models.
“In the process of building and operating AI models, Anthropic unlawfully copies and disseminates vast amounts of copyrighted works,” wrote lawyers for the music companies at the time. “Publishers embrace innovation and recognize the great promise of AI when used ethically and responsibly. But Anthropic violates these principles on a systematic and widespread basis.”
While many in the music business are also calling for compensation and the ability to opt in or out of being used in a data set, this bill focuses only on requiring transparency with copyrighted training data. Still, it has garnered support from many music industry groups, including the Recorded Industry Association of America (RIAA), National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), ASCAP, Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), and Human Artistry Campaign.
It is also supported by other creative industry groups, including the Professional Photographers of America, SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild of America, International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) and more.
“AI has the disruptive potential of changing our economy, our political system, and our day-to-day lives,” said Rep. Schiff in a statement. “We must balance the immense potential of AI with the crucial need for ethical guidelines and protections. My Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act is a pivotal step in this direction. It champions innovation while safeguarding the rights and contributions of creators, ensuring they are aware when their work contributes to AI training datasets. This is about respecting creativity in the age of AI and marrying technological progress with fairness.”
A number of rights groups also weighed in on the introduction of the bill.
“Any effective regulatory regime for AI must start with one of the most fundamental building blocks of effective enforcement of creators’ rights — comprehensive and transparent record keeping,” adds RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow. “RIAA applauds Congressman Schiff for leading on this urgent and foundational issue.”
“We commend Congressman Schiff for his leadership on the Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act,” NMPA president/CEO David Israelite said. “AI only works because it mines the work of millions of creators every day and it is essential that AI companies reveal exactly what works are training their data. This is a critical first step towards ensuring that AI companies fully license and that songwriters are fully compensated for the work being used to fuel these platforms.”
“Without transparency around the use of copyrighted works in training artificial intelligence, creators will never be fairly compensated and AI tech companies will continue stealing from songwriters,” ASCAP CEO Elizabeth Matthews said. “This bill is an important step toward ensuring that the law puts humans first, and we thank Congressman Schiff for his leadership.”
“Protecting the work of music creators is essential, and this all begins with transparency and tracking the use of copyrighted materials in generative AI,” Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) co-chair Willie “Prophet” Stiggers said. “BMAC hopes Rep. Schiff’s Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act helps garner support for this mission and that author and creator rights continue to be protected and preserved.”
“Congressman Schiff’s proposal is a big step forward towards responsible AI that partners with artists and creators instead of exploiting them,” Human Artistry Campaign senior advisor Dr. Moiya McTier said. “AI companies should stop hiding the ball when they copy creative works into AI systems and embrace clear rules of the road for recordkeeping that create a level and transparent playing field for the development and licensing of genuinely innovative applications and tools.”
Spotify has launched a new AI playlist feature for premium users in the United Kingdom and Australia, the company revealed in a blog post on Sunday (April 7). The new feature, which is still in beta, allows Spotify users in those markets to turn any concept into a playlist by using prompts like “an indie […]
When Ariana Grande released her latest album eternal sunshine, one of its most beloved tracks, “the boy is mine,” became an instant dance trend on TikTok. At any other moment, a viral trend around a major pop star’s new song would seem obvious, even normal. But amidst the licensing feud between TikTok and Grande’s record label Universal Music Group, it’s a surprise to find the song on TikTok at all.
Grande’s music is not alone in sticking around on the app far past the expiration of UMG’s last license, which lapsed at the end of January. Thanks to clever tactics by fans, artists and their teams, some notable UMG-affiliated songs have been able to effectively skirt the company’s TikTok boycott. While it helps promote these songs individually, trying to get around the ban also has a knock-on effect for songwriters — and supplies UMG hits to TikTok without the app paying a cent.
An Olivia Rodrigo fan under the username LouLiv recently uploaded Rodrigo’s new single “so american” to TikTok as an “original sound,” and Rodrigo herself used the sound in a few recent TikToks, helping boost the song’s visibility. Grande’s fans have also been creating various versions of “the boy is mine” on TikTok, which has helped spread the song on the app, as well as other tracks from eternal sunshine.
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These original sounds often manipulate the official recording, changing the speed, pitch and/or title of the song to help them slip past TikTok’s detection technology, which is used to automatically catch songs, like UMG’s, that are not licensed to be on the app. A source close to the matter says that TikTok’s detection technology combs for metadata provided by UMG and UMPG and then removes the content. But the remaining original sounds that don’t get automatically wiped from TikTok are so widespread that it can sometimes feel like UMG never left the app at all.
The songs are not hard to find, either. The most popular sound for Rodrigo’s “so american,” for example, is straightforwardly titled “so american” and already has 33,400 videos created with the song to date. The most-used original audio for “the boy is mine” was recently removed after weeks on TikTok, a sign that UMG is issuing takedowns for some original sounds using their catalog. But multiple other original audios for the song remain, including “the boy is mine” by star and “the boy is mine sped up” by satvrn, amounting to over 100,000 videos made to original sounds of the song on TikTok and counting.
For songwriters, there are negative consequences. In two separate text and email chains reviewed by Billboard, non-UMG recording artists that have worked on recent or upcoming releases with UMPG songwriters have asked the track’s songwriters to withhold information about who wrote the song at the time of a track’s release to try to skirt the UMG TikTok ban — and the songwriters have agreed.
Though the two sources who provided correspondence to Billboard wished to remain anonymous to protect their clients, Lucas Keller, founder/CEO of Milk & Honey and manager to a number of songwriters and producers, confirmed that this is happening to songwriters. “Sometimes there’s a song coming out and there’s four writers, and one of them is UMPG, and someone steps forward and says, ‘Hey, can you not get in the way of this one? Can we register this in like three months?’” Keller says. “Then the song can be used on TikTok. It’s an interesting dark corner of the business that’s emerged.”
It is common for tracks to be released without submitting the proper publishing “splits,” meaning the names of the writers and what the percentage of ownership each holds, given these negotiations can be lengthy and sometimes contentious. But in the cases Keller and the other two sources discussed with Billboard, the songs’ publishing splits were ready to go and could have been submitted on time. The only reason they weren’t was to allow the artist to promote it on TikTok.
Michelle Lewis, co-founder and CEO of Songwriters of North America (SONA), says these asks by artists put songwriters in a bad position. “Songwriters are the least equipped to negotiate, the lowest on the food chain in these discussions,” Lewis says. She worries songwriters don’t feel like they have the ability to push back on these asks if they want to. Meanwhile, leaving out this key information could threaten the songwriters’ ability to get paid royalties from streaming services on time if the parties hold out longer than a few months.
Lewis, Keller and three artist managers who wished to remain anonymous, all tell Billboard that some artists are also “thinking twice” about inviting UMPG writers to sessions. “I have also heard about Universal writers not being invited to camps,” Lewis says; while it’s unclear how often this is occurring, Keller says it “is absolutely happening.” Adds Lewis, “It’s so uncool. If you’re not including Universal writers, you’re basically crossing the picket line. You’re weakening [UMG’s position].”
A UMPG spokesperson declined to comment on its songwriters facing these specific effects from the TikTok feud, but pointed to its letter to songwriters on Feb. 29, which read in part, “We understand the disruption is difficult for some of you and your careers, and we are sensitive to how this may affect you.”
Some official recordings with UMPG writers, like “Texas Hold Em” by Beyonce, who is affiliated with Sony’s Columbia Records, still remain on TikTok for unknown reasons. That song, which is currently ranked at No. 5 on Billboard’s TikTok Viral 50, was co-written by UMPG’s Raphael Saadiq, as were other songs on Beyonce’s new album Cowboy Carter that remain on the platform.
“Texas Hold Em” and some other tracks by Beyonce have a large number of songwriters — which is one major reason why publishing information is often submitted late — so it is possible that TikTok hasn’t removed the track because it doesn’t have verification that it is in any way affiliated with UMPG. Strangely, however, this track was taken down from TikTok briefly and then reappeared days later. When asked why “Texas Hold Em” was available on TikTok despite its clear ties to UMPG, neither TikTok nor UMPG responded to Billboard’s requests for comment.
Regardless of how these songs avoided an automatic removal from TikTok, UMG could have requested that these popular tracks and original sounds be taken down by now. Rights holders are able to manually request takedowns of content on TikTok that they believe infringe on their copyrights, like the original sounds for Grande and Rodrigo and songs like “Texas Hold Em,” and TikTok is required to remove them to remain in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
But tracking down all infringing content and requesting takedowns, especially for a catalog of millions like UMG’s, is known to be a tedious task. As UMG put it in its original letter to artists and songwriters, it is “monumentally cumbersome” and “the digital equivalent of ‘Whack-A-Mole.’” Michael Nash, the company’s executive vp of digital strategy, also added on an earnings call on Feb. 28 that the company had sent requests to “effectuate muting of millions of videos every day.” However, it is possible to get infringing tracks removed if that is the rights holders’ wish.
“This is not a united front,” Lewis says. “It feels indicative of our industry overall. We can never get along, and the individual creator is the one who gets hurt… It’s totally not fair for songwriters, but this is all beneath the top line concern, which is that TikTok completely underpays, undervalues songwriters. That’s number one. They’re the ones who started this.”
Billboard is bringing back its peer-voted Country Power Players’ Choice Award for 2024, asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the Country music genre in the past year. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Voting is […]
Billboard is bringing back its peer-voted Country Power Players’ Choice Award for 2024, asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the Country music genre in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per […]
Every passing day, a new statistic emerges that would make any aspiring artist, producer, or songwriter feel foolish for trying to fund their dreams.
Over 100,000 songs get ingested to Spotify daily, but the vast majority of them fail to surpass the 1,000-play mark. Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, and Universal Music Group reported record profits in 2023, but those numbers are largely driven by a small number of star artists. A 2017 study showed that out of 7,000 bands tracked, only 21 managed to headline a venue with a capacity exceeding 3,000. Limited opportunity and long odds face artists who don’t have significant industry backing.
Content saturation makes it harder to stand out, inspiring strategic conservatism from major labels, who, driven by data, fear financial risk and tend to invest in artists who demonstrate substantial market appeal.
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What are musicians — and, frankly, writers, visual artists, filmmakers, or any creators — in need of resources to do when corporations appear more risk-averse than ever?
Why do we need a grant system for individual artists?
While art is often considered a luxury rather than a public good, it has been shown to provide both cultural enrichment and economic stimulus.
In 2023, Americans for the Arts found that the nonprofit arts and culture industry provided 2.6 million jobs, generated $29.1 billion in tax revenue, and provided $101 billion in personal income to U.S. residents. These numbers include the individuals who benefit from public arts funding to become working artists, who tour, show their work at museums, and fill movie theaters.
America’s nonprofit and for-profit arts sectors work together to promote cultural growth as much as they stimulate economic activity locally and nationally.
Public funding for the arts has remained relatively steady in absolute terms. However, inflation-adjusted spending on the arts by local governments has declined consistently throughout the 2000s. Local arts agencies now receive 27% less in funding than they did in 2001.
Other countries have shown a better system can exist.
For 37 years, Canada’s FACTOR grant program has supported Canadian recording artists in meaningful ways.
FACTOR covers costs that traditionally require the debt financing of a label deal: recording, music videos, and tour funding chief among them.
Notable FACTOR recipients launched into successful careers include Jessie Reyez, Grimes, Charlotte Cardin, BADBADNOTGOOD and TOBi. Drake’s vaunted company October’s Very Own has also received a variety of grants from Canadian governmental sources — including funding for the 2014 OVO Fest.
In Sweden, robust arts education in public schools combined with an internationally-minded grant system contribute to the small nation’s outsized influence on popular music abroad, particularly in the United States where Max Martin’s Swedish pop sensibilities have dominated Billboard charts since Bill Clinton was in office.
While in America, artists can gain access to grants through institutions like the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation or the Henry Luce Foundation, or via state institutions, there is no unified federal mechanism for arts funding akin to FACTOR or the Swedish Arts Grant Committee. The National Endowment for the Arts has an impressive grantmaking operation but does not give direct grants to individual artists.
Introducing the CREATE Art Act.
We need a better system.
In 2024, we are working to bring the CREATE Art Act to the American public. Created by Congressman Maxwell Frost, a drummer and musician himself and the first Gen-Z person ever elected to the United States Congress, the CREATE Art Act proposes a novel grant system for individual artists of all disciplines.
CREATE grants go beyond international models in the way they target emerging artists, those creators who may not yet have the good fortune of making a living off of their art or wish to avoid potentially injurious record and publishing deals. Recipients must show net earnings of less than $50,000 in the previous five years and not more than $400,000 in the previous 20 years from their art. The art produced must be relevant to the community and accessible to the public. The grants include:
Progress Grant – Up to $2,000 to support a year of artist activities.
Project Grant – Up to $100,000 per project that can be used over two years.
Live Performance Grant – Up to $35,000 for live performances.
Development Fund – Up to $10,000 to pay the living and working expenses of artists
while they research, write, or cultivate stories or projects.
The purpose of the program is twofold.
First, and simply, more artists with funding means more art. The greater the creative output of our nation, the greater the diversity of voices with the potential to gain an audience, shift perspectives, inspire future generations, and tell new American stories.
Second, more artists creating means more economic activity in a sector experiencing an algae bloom of creators and consumers.
The current media landscape cuts a more jagged figure than ever. No monoliths. No starmakers. No obvious paths to success.
In a time of such noise and fragmentation, artists find it as hard as ever to fund their dreams and more difficult than before to cut through the clutter.
The CREATE Art Act would plant a foot on the right path forward, opening up possibilities for generations of American artists to come.
The first member of Generation Z to be elected to Congress, Maxwell Alejandro Frost is proud to represent the people of Central Florida (FL-10) in the United States House of Representatives. As a young Member of Congress and Afro-Latino, Congressman Frost brings a fresh, progressive perspective to an institution formerly out of reach for young, working Black and Latino Americans.
Jon Tanners is a manager, writer, and entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. He manages Grammy-winning, multi-platinum producers Dahi, Michael Uzowuru, and Take A Daytrip and is also co-founder of CreateSafe.
Warner Music Group announced over the weekend that it has called off plans to submit a binding offer to acquire French music company Believe. The label did not elaborate on its decision, only that it was made “after careful consideration.” Believe followed up in a statement, saying it will “review the situation with all interested […]
Morgan Wallen was arrested and jailed on Sunday night (April 7) in Nashville after the chart-topping country singer allegedly hurled a chair off the six-story roof of a popular bar on the city’s bustling Broadway street. On Monday morning (April 8), Billboard received a statement from Wallen’s attorney, Worrick Robinson of Worrick Robinson Law, confirming […]
GEMA’s revenue rose 8.4% in 2023, to €1.28 billion ($1.4 billion), the German collective management society (CMO) announced April 8, and for the second year in a row it will distribute more than a billion Euros to its members – €1.08 billion ($1.17 billion) to be exact. That income was offset by an expense ratio […]
Shares of Spotify jumped 17.6% to $310.31 this week on a report that the streaming giant will raise prices again in select markets as well as news that it named a new CFO, Christian Luiga, a former CFO and deputy CEO at European defense and security company Saab AB.
Spotify’s newfound willingness to both raise prices and control costs has given new life to its stock price after an expensive entry into podcasting caused a downturn in 2022. Through Friday (April 5), shares of Spotify have increased 65.2% year to date and 134.2% over the past 12 months. Not even Believe, up 57.1% in 2024 thanks to competing interests to acquire the company, has matched Spotify’s momentum this year. Sphere Entertainment has also enjoyed a boost on Wall Street since U2’s inaugural residency at the $2.3-billion Las Vegas venue, but its 37.7% gain in 2024 also lags behind Spotify.
For more than a decade, Spotify kept its subscription prices low and emphasized subscriber growth over profits. The market’s mood has shifted in recent years, though. Once satisfied with growth in user numbers, investors now want high-flying streaming companies to be profitable, too. Since Spotify announced a price increase on July 24, 2023, the share price has increased 89.5% and raised the company’s market capitalization by roughly $29 billion to $61.5 billion. The share price has gone up 71.7% since Spotify announced it would cut 16% of its staff on Dec. 4, 2023.
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This week, investors reacted to a Bloomberg report that Spotify is raising subscription prices in select markets and will pass another rate hike in the United States later this year. Following the news, Spotify gained 8.2% to $291.77 on Wednesday (April 3). Labels appeared to benefit, too: Universal Music Group rose 5.5% and Warner Music Group gained 5.8% on Wednesday following news of the price increase.
Rather than shy away from price increases in successive years, Spotify could have a unique ability to withstand higher prices compared to its peers. Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in an investor note on Thursday (April 4) that music is “broadly under-monetized” and the quality of Spotify’s product gives it “unique pricing power.” Guggenheim analysts wrote in a report on Wednesday that they believe the price increase could mean a “9% revenue impact” in the affected markets.
What’s more, the higher prices could help Spotify by improving its audiobook business. Spotify now gives subscribers in the United States and some other markets 15 hours of free audiobook streaming per month; users can also purchase additional listening time and buy audiobooks to keep. A recent Morgan Stanley survey revealed Spotify was used by 38% of audiobook listeners, second only to veteran audiobook platform Audible despite Spotify having launched audiobooks only a few months before the survey. “Audiobooks appear to be perhaps a larger revenue opportunity than podcasting based on this survey works and long-standing consumer price points for books,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.
The Billboard Global Music Index dropped 0.2% to 1,748.38 as nine of the index’s 20 stocks were winners, 10 were losers and one was unchanged. No company other than Spotify posted a double-digit increase, however, and three companies — iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media and Anghami — had double-digit declines.
Stocks were mixed globally this week. In the United States, the Nasdaq composite dropped 0.8% to 16,248.52 and the S&P 500 fell 1.0% to 5,204.34. The United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 fell 0.5% to 7,911.16. China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.9% to 3,069.30. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index lost 1.2% to 2,714.21.
Music streaming company Anghami (NASDAQ: ANGH) was the biggest loser of the week after dropping 41.1% — it lost 44.5% on Wednesday alone — after OSN Group, a premium entertainment provider for the Middle East-North Africa region, acquired a 55.45% stake. The deal, first announced in November 2023, combines the Abu Dhabi on-demand music streaming service with a paid, on-demand video streaming platform that carries both Arabic and Turkish titles and content from Western brands such as HBO, Universal Pictures and Paramount.