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Downtown Music launched Curve Royalty Services on Thursday for labels, publishers, and distributors that are hoping to find a third party to handle the laborious work of accounting on their behalf. Downtown had previously acquired the company Curve Royalty Systems in 2023.
“It has always been our goal to make royalties better and easier,” Richard Leach, managing director at Curve, said in a statement. “Now our royalty services team can take on those parts of the process [that] clients would like to outsource.”
Curve was launched in 2019. “We ingest data from the likes of Spotify, Apple Music, any physical distributors, 1,000+ different sources,” co-founder Tom Allen explained in 2022. “We then allow labels and publishers to input the contract details, and we output the artist statements.”
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“In its simplest form,” he added, “it is just a bit of math.”
But it can be a lot of math in the streaming era. Back in 2012, when streaming services began acquiring more users, “statements that we were used to seeing, maybe we would hit hundreds of thousands of lines on a statement, and you could still manage that on Excel,” Leach added in the same interview. “Suddenly we were getting millions and millions of lines of data every month. Anyone who’s familiar with Excel knows it collapses at a million lines.”
In this new landscape, some labels and distributors were “really struggling,” Leach continued. “And that was really the genesis for Curve. We struggled to find the software to deal with the scale. Suddenly processes were taking days instead of hours. We couldn’t find a solution” — until “Tom thought he’d have a crack at building it.”
Curve expanded into the U.S. in 2021. The following year, the company said it processed close to $1 billion in revenue. It currently serves around 1,500 clients, including notable independent labels like Domino, Epitaph, and Armada.
Downtown acquired Curve in January 2023. “We have been admirers of the technology and service quality that Tom and Richard have been building,” Downtown CEO Andrew Bergman said at the time.
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Source: Orlando Ramirez / Getty / Dr Disrespect
It was all disrespect after Dr Disrespect revealed why Twitch banned him from the platform permanently.
Guy Beahm, better known as Dr Disrespect, told the world that the reason Twitch dropped an airstrike on his account two years ago was that he got caught in 4K sending private messages to a minor that he said: “sometimes leaned too much in the direction of being inappropriate.”
In a lengthy and edited post, he shared on X, formerly Twitter, the ridiculously popular YouTube streamer shared details about the banning after former Twitch employees spilled the tea on the platform on Friday, writing that he “got caught sexting a minor.”
Speaking with The Verge, another former employee said, “Beahm was banned over messages sent to a minor that discussed meeting up at TwitchCon.”
In his response, Beahm claims there were no “real intentions” behind the messages with the unnamed minor, adding, “I should have never entertained these conversations to begin with.”
A Masterclass In Fumbling Bags
We bet Dr Disrespect means it when he says he shouldn’t have never entertained these conversations because he is fumbling bags.
The first fumble came when he lost his two-year exclusivity contract to stream on Twitch. At the time, he was one of the biggest stars on the platform, with 4 million.
Twitch never spoke about the ban, and Dr Disrespect played it off as if he didn’t know why his partnership with the platform ended, but he was able to amass over 4.7 million subscribers on YouTube.
But while he still has his YouTube page, he was fired from the video game studio he co-founded, Midnight Society, on Tuesday.
In a post on X, the studio’s head, Robert Bowling, wrote, “If you inappropriately message a minor. I can not work with you.”
The Verge also reports that Dr Disrespect’s partnership with gaming peripheral company Turtle Beach is also a wrap.
Don’t be surprised if other companies he is tied to follow suit.
Despite the cracks in his streaming empire showing, Dr Disrespect vows to keep streaming after he comes back from his “vacation.”
The video game subsection of X has been clowning Dr Disrespect and anyone who fixed their lips to defend him; you can see those reactions in the gallery below.
2. Lol, interesting how the energy changed so swiftly.
3. Smart move
4. Howling
5. Another bag bites the dust
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Source: Marc Piasecki / Getty / Elon Musk
The Donald Trump of technology, Elon Musk, is out here making babies like his company drops poorly designed electric vehicles.
Elon Musk is one of the few clowns who believe in the made-up theory that the world is suffering from a depopulation crisis, and apparently, he is out here trying to fix the problem.
According to a Bloomberg report, Musk has another secret child with an executive at his brain implant company, Neuralink.
The woman’s name is Shivon Zilis. According to the report, she is a Neuralink director who reportedly gave birth to the child earlier this year.
This is even more interesting because, according to a court document dug up by Business Insider in 2022, Zilis already has twins with Musk.
If you happen to be keeping count on Elon Musk’s children, the world’s phoniest genius has three children with singer Grimes and six other children from previous relationships. Add the latest three to the bunch, and Musk will have a total of 12 children.
Bruh.
Musk out here acting like he’s the biblical figure Adam or N’Credible seed spreader Nick Canon isn’t because he doesn’t know how to use contraception; according to The Verge, he truly believes that making all of these kids is his attempt at keeping the human population up.
Per The Verge:
On Thursday, Musk reposted a chart that claims Europe is suffering from a “fertility crisis,” saying “civilization may end with a bang or with a whimper (in adult diapers).”
As noted by Bloomberg, Musk has repeated that line several times in the past, including during a 2022 interview with Tucker Carlson and again during an interview at the Milken Institute conference in May. He told Carlson “a collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces, by far.” In 2021, Musk’s nonprofit organization donated $10 million to the University of Austin to fund the Population Wellbeing Initiative, a research group that studies the human population.
Elon Musk’s History of Being A Horny Sh*tty Boss
This latest news comes on the heels of Musk being put on blast for his behavior. Multiple reports have accused the Tesla chief of inappropriate conduct at the workplace and with his subordinates.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, a SpaceX Intern later became one of the company’s executives after having a sexual relationship with Musk.
Another employee told Musk nah after he asked her several times to have his children, according to a scathing Wall Street Journal report on his behavior with women.
There’s also that time he propositioned a flight attendant for sex.
Just last week, six former SpaceX employees hit Musk with a lawsuit claiming he “knowingly and purposefully created an unwelcome hostile work environment based upon his conduct of interjecting into the workplace vile sexual photographs, memes, and commentary that demeaned women and/or the LGBTQ+ community.”
Yeah, he’s never beating the he’s more Donald Trump than Tony Stark allegations.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Post Malone has more in store for fans even after announcing his F1-Trillion tour. As an avid gamer, he’s partnered with […]
Last July, more than 70 country songwriters and producers filtered into Sony Music Publishing’s Nashville office to hear a presentation from Beatstars, the popular website that allows artists to buy or lease full instrumentals for their own use. Seth Mosley, whose recent co-writes include songs recorded by Tim McGraw and Gabby Barrett, was in attendance that day, and he was compelled by the company’s pitch. He started posting beats on the platform regularly in December, hoping it could provide him with a new income stream — and another source of exposure.
But this way of working is unusual in country music. Beatstars was initially popularized by rappers and singers in R&B and pop, genres where it’s common for vocalists to use a fully-formed track as a jumping-off point. Music-making in Nashville is often more traditional, with ace session musicians recording in revered studios — a world away from the fast-moving online beat economy.
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With time, though, Beatstars’ success stories have become more varied, spreading to realms that were once ruled by bands playing instruments. ThxSoMch and Wisp found post-punk and neo-shoegaze instrumentals, respectively, on the platform, added their own vocals, and scored breakout moments and major-label deals. And country could be the next frontier.
Beatstars is noticing heightened interest in the genre as it surges in the U.S., says Greg Mateo, the platform’s president of music and publishing. In Mosley’s six months on Beatstars, he’s learned that “anything that’s got a Morgan Wallen spin to it is in high demand.”
That demand is growing on other music-making platforms as well. Bandlab, a mobile music creation app that now has more than 100 million users, has also seen excitement for country elevate in the U.S., according to CEO Meng Ru Kuok.
On top of that, statistics from Splice, which provides producers with a massive library of samples, indicate that its 8 million-strong user base is incorporating country flavors with greater frequency this year. User searches for “country” have more than doubled compared to 2023. And their interest in samples of instruments associated with the genre has soared, including banjo (searches are up 75%), mandolin (66%), pedal steel (113%) and fiddle (131%).
Producer BachBeats, who sells country instrumentals online, predicts that this enthusiasm on music creation platforms is only going to increase: The recent release of Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s collaboration “I Had Some Help,” which landed one of the biggest streaming debuts in history, “is going to bring a bunch of people from the hip-hop world into country.”
Beyoncé‘s recent references to the genre helped too, according to Xzaviar, another producer who sells country instrumentals. He says downloads of his productions “ticked up” after she released Cowboy Carter in March.
But importantly, the phenomenon appears larger than any single act or album: Xzaviar has quadrupled his income from beat sales on YouTube and Beatstars since August, with instrumentals in the style of Wallen or Zach Bryan performing especially well. It’s notable that, even though country music is most beloved in America, only 65% of Xzaviar’s sales come from the U.S.
Beatstars is trying to capitalize on this interest — and fan the flames. In June, they launched a new playlist to highlight their top country producers. “They’re really focused on country and getting a lot of country creators on the platform,” says Kenley Flynn, vp of creative for Sony Music Publishing Nashville. (The publisher and Beatstars first formed a partnership in 2020.)
Still, the rise of country in the online music-making economy may not be immediately felt in Nashville. Even though pre-programmed tracks aren’t uncommon in contemporary country, this model of working — buying a beat on a website — flies in the face of the industry’s longtime system for songwriting and producing. “The biggest hurdle for us is just it’s so not how the Nashville creative community operates,” Flynn acknowledges. “These writers are used to creating from 11a.m. till 3 p.m. in a room with two or three others,” often people they know.
And when it comes to producers, artists often find one they like and rely on that person to “cut everything,” Mosley says. In pop or hip-hop, every song on an album might be overseen by someone different, and each track could contain elements from a beat-maker that neither the artist nor the producer has met in person. That grab-bag approach remains rare in country music.
Norms are shifting in the genre, though — adaptations that are increasingly necessary since a country hit can now come from anywhere. More coastal record companies are signing country artists directly instead of relying on their Nashville office, for example. And country labels are increasingly taking part in the signing conversations around artists who go viral.
In other genres, the hits that explode on social media platforms are often cobbled together with help from places like Beatstars or Bandlab. It’s not a stretch to imagine the next Priscilla Block or Tucker Wetmore buying a “Morgan Wallen type beat” on YouTube before embarking on a savvy social media campaign that sparks a viral trend. As a “new generation of artists and songwriters comes in [to the music industry] they’re going to use the modern tools,” says Corey McAfee, who serves as director of global copyright for Sony Music Publishing Nashville.
The economics of these music creation platforms also position them to help would-be country stars. “If you’re bartending to make money and work on your music part-time, it can be very expensive to get in a room with a full band,” says David Morris, a Nashville-based rapper and singer who works with BachBeats and other country producers on Beatstars. “You need to be able to explore your sound or write to music, and you can lease some of these beats for less than $100.” (A lease comes with only limited rights, so if a song becomes a hit an artist has to make a new deal with the producer; acts also have the option to buy out beats from the start, though that is slightly more expensive.)
Band members might be able to benefit from offering their work online as well. “It’s not just so-called beat-makers on these platforms,” McAfee notes. “Maybe you’re an amazing guitar player, which we know this city is full of, and you’re making guitar loops” that can be used by vocalists around the world.
For Flynn, the math is simple. “Big songs have come from Beatstars, and there are producers on the platform that are earning tons of money by just selling their beats,” he says. For country artists and producers, “there’s a huge opportunity.”
AI has incredible promise and music creators are first in line exploring just how far these tools and innovations can take us.
At the same time, like every new technology, AI has risks and music creators are also first in line working to ensure it develops in lawful, responsible ways that respect individual autonomy and extend human creativity and possibility.
Yet today, a year and a half after the first mass market AI services were released, we still don’t know whether the promise or the peril of AI will win out.
Too many developers and investors seem to see a zero sum game – where AI behemoths scrape artists’ and songwriters’ life’s work off the internet for free and without any opportunity for individual choice, autonomy, or values. Where most of us see music, art, and culture to be cherished, they see soulless data to copied, “tokenized,” and exploited. Where most of us look to collaborate and reach for new horizons, they prefer to exploit art and culture for their own narrow gains. On the road to society’s AI future, it’s their way or no way.
At the top of the list of irresponsible developers are two music generation services, Suno and Udio, who claim to offer the ability to generate “new” music based on simple text prompts – a feat that’s only possible because these models have copied and exploited human-created music on a mass scale without authorization. Both have clearly chosen the low road of secretive, unconsented scraping and exploitation of copyrighted creative works instead of the high road of licensing and partnership.
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To address this egregious conduct, a group of music companies have today filed lawsuits against Suno and Udio in federal court in Boston and New York City, respectively. These lawsuits seek to stop the companies’ industrial scale infringement and steer generative AI back onto a healthy, responsible, lawful path.
Suno and Udio clearly recognize the business risks they are taking, going to extreme lengths to avoid transparency and refusing to disclose even the most obvious facts about how they have exploited copyrighted works or to even show us what works they have copied and used. If they really believed their own “fair use” rhetoric, if they really believe what they are doing is legal, would they work so hard to hide the ball?
The worst part is, these are multi-million dollar companies funded by the deepest pockets in the world who know the long term value music brings to their projects and who can well afford to pay fair rates for it; they just don’t want to. They willingly invest mass sums in compute and engineering, but want to take the most important ingredient – high quality human creativity – for free.
It’s a deeply shortsighted gamble – and one that has a track record of failing to deliver. Early internet services who relied on similar arguments and failed to get permission before launching are the ones who flamed out most spectacularly. Meanwhile digital streamers that partnered with artists and rightsholders to gain permission and innovate a healthy, sustainable marketplace together are today’s leading global music services.
And it’s totally unnecessary. Music creators are reaching out and leaning into opportunities in AI that support both innovation and the rights of artists and songwriters and have extended the hand of partnership and licensing to responsible AI companies.
In the last year, Sony, Warner and Universal have used creative AI tools to deliver breathtaking new moments with iconic artists including The Beatles, Roberta Flack, and David Gilmour and the Orb, all with appropriate partnership and consent. Music companies have partnered with ethical cutting-edge AI firms like BandLab, Endel and SoundLabs. And singer/songwriter Randy Travis used AI to record his first new song since largely losing his voice after a 2013 stroke.
But AI platforms should not mistake the music community’s embrace of AI as a willingness to accept continuing mass infringement. While free-market partnerships are the best path forward, we will not allow the status quo scraping and copying of artists’ creative legacies without permission to stand unchallenged. As in the past, music creators will enforce their rights to protect the creative engine of human artistry and enable the development of a healthy and sustainable licensed market that recognizes the value of both creativity and technology.
Generative AI has extraordinary promise. But realizing it will take collaboration, partnership, and genuine respect for human creativity. It’s time for AI companies to choose – go nowhere alone or explore a rich, amazing future together.
Mitch Glazier is Chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
A few weeks back, a member of the team at my company, Ircam Amplify, joined one of the multiple AI music generators available online and input a brief prompt for a song. Within minutes, a new track was generated and promptly uploaded to a distribution platform. In just a couple of hours, that song, in which no human creativity played a part, was available on various streaming platforms. We diligently took action to remove the track from all of them, but the experiment highlighted a significant point.
It is now that simple! My aim here is not to pass judgment on whether AI-generated music is a good or a bad thing — from that perspective, we are neutral — but we think it is important to emphasize that, while the process is easy and cost-effective, there are absolutely no safeguards currently in place to ensure that consumers know if the music they are listening to is AI-generated. Consequently, they cannot make an informed choice about whether they want to listen to such music.
With AI-generated songs inundating digital platforms, streaming services require vast technological resources to manage the volume of tracks, diverting attention away from the promotion of music created by “human” artists and diluting the royalty pool.
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Like it or not, AI is here to stay, and more and more songs will find their way onto streaming platforms given how quick and easy the process is. We already know that there are AI-generated music “farms” flooding streaming platforms; over 25 million tracks were recently removed by Deezer, and it is reasonable to speculate that a significant proportion of these were AI-generated.
In the interest of transparency, consumers surely deserve to know whether the music they are tuning into is the genuine product of human creativity or derived from computer algorithms. But how can AI-generated tracks be easily distinguished? Solutions already exist. At Ircam Amplify, we offer a series of audio tools, from spatial sound to vocal separator, that cover the full audio supply chain. One of the latest technologies we have launched is an AI-generated detector designed to help rights holders, as well as platforms, identify tracks that are AI-generated. Through a series of benchmarks, we have been able to determine the “fingerprints” of AI models and apply them to their output to identify tracks coming from AI-music factories.
The purpose of any solution should be to support the whole music ecosystem by providing a technical answer to a real problem while contributing to a more fluid and transparent digital music market.
Discussions around transparency and AI are gaining traction all around the world. From Tokyo to Washington, D.C., from Brussels to London, policymakers are considering new legislation that would require platforms to identify AI-generated content. That is the second recommendation in the recent report “Artificial Intelligence and the Music Industry — Master or Servant?” published by the UK Parliament.
Consumers are also demanding it. A recent UK Music survey of more than 2,000 people, commissioned by Whitestone Insight, emphatically revealed that more than four out of five people (83%) agree that if AI technology has been used to create a song, it should be distinctly labeled as such.
Similarly, a survey conducted by Goldmedia in 2023 on behalf of rights societies GEMA and SACEM found that 89% of the collective management organizations’ members expressed a desire for AI-generated music tracks and other works to be clearly identified.
These overwhelming numbers tell us that concerns about AI are prevalent within creative circles and are also shared by consumers. There are multiple calls for the ethical use of AI, mostly originating from rights holders — artists, record labels, music publishers, collective management organizations, etc. — and transparency is usually at the core of these initiatives.
Simply put, if there’s AI in the recipe, then it should be flagged. If we can collectively find a way to ensure that AI-generated music is identified, then we will have made serious progress towards transparency.
Nathalie Birocheau currently serves as CEO at Ircam Amplify and is also a certified engineer (Centrale-Supélec) and former strategy consultant who has led several major cultural and media projects, notably within la Maison de la Radio. She became Deputy Director of France Info in 2016, where she led the creation of the global media franceinfo.
Futureverse, an AI music company co-founded by music technology veteran Shara Senderoff, has announced the alpha launch of Jen, its text-to-music AI model. Available for anyone to use on its website, Jen-1 is an AI model that can be safely used by creators, given it was trained on 40 different fully-licensed catalogs, containing about 150 million works in total.
The company’s co-founders, Senderoff and Aaron McDonald, first teased Jen’s launch by releasing a research paper and conducting an interview with Billboard in August 2023. In the interview, Senderoff explained that “Jen is spelled J-E-N because she’s designed to be your friend who goes into the studio with you. She’s a tool.”
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Some of Jen’s capabilities, available at its alpha launch, include the ability to generate 10-45 second song snippets using text prompts. To lengthen the song to a full 3:30-long duration, one can use its “continuation” feature to re-prompt and add on additional segments to the song. With a focus on “its commitment to transparency, compensation and copyright identification,” as its press release states, Jen has made much of its inner workings available to the public via its research papers, including that the model uses “latent diffusion,” the same process used by Stable Diffusion, DALL-E 2, and Imagen to create high quality images. (It is unclear which music AI models use “latent diffusion” as well, given many do not share this information publicly).
Additionally, when works are created with Jen, users receive a JENUINE indicator, verifying that the song was made with Jen at a specific timestamp. To be more specific, this indicator is a cryptographic hash that is then recorded on The Root Network blockchain.
In an effort to work more closely with the music business, Futureverse brought on APG founder/CEO Mike Caren as a founding partner in fall 2023. While its mid-2024 release date makes it a late entrant in the music AI space, the company attributes this delay to making sure its 40 licenses were secured.
For now, Futureverse has declined to comment on which songs are included in their overall training catalog for Jen, but a representative for the company says that among these 40 catalogs includes a number of production libraries. Futureverse says it is also in talks with all major music companies and will have more licenses secured soon for Jen’s beta launch, expected for September 2024. Some licensing partners could be announced as soon as 4-6 weeks from the alpha launch.
In September, Futureverse has more capabilities planned, including longer initial song results, inpainting (the process of filling in missing sections or gaps in a musical piece) and a capability the company calls its “StyleFilter,” allowing users to upload an audio snippet of an instrument or track and then change the genre or timbre of it at the click of a button.
Also in September, Futureverse plans to launch a beat marketplace called R3CORD to go along with JEN. This will let JEN users upload whatever they produce with JEN to the marketplace and sell the works to others.
So far, the U.S. Copyright Office has advised that fully AI generated creations are not protected copyrights. Instead, they are considered “public domain” works and are not eligible to earn royalties like copyrights do, but any human additions made to an AI-assisted work are able to be copyright protected. (Already, this guidance has been applied in the music business in the case of Drake and Sexyy Red’s “U My Everything” which sampled the fully-AI generated sound recording “BBL Drizzy).”
“We have reached a defining moment for the future of the music industry. To ensure artistry maintains the value it deserves, we must commit to honor the creativity and copyrights of the past, while embracing the tools that will shape the next generation of music creation,” says Senderoff. “Jen empowers creators with tools that enhance their creative process. Jen is a collaborator; a friend in the studio that works with you to ideate and iterate. As we bring Jen to market, we are partnering with music rights holders and aligning with the industry at large to deliver what we believe is the most ethical approach to generative AI.”
“We’re incredibly proud of the work that’s gone into building Jen, from our research and technology to a strategy that we continue to develop with artists’ rights top of mind,” says Caren. “We welcome an open dialogue for those who’ve yet to meet Jen. There’s a seat at the table for every rightsholder to participate in building this next chapter of the music industry.”
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Source: Linda Yaccarino, Timbaland, Elon Musk, Swizz Beatz / Verzuz
VERZUZ, the friendly but competitive music battle series created by Swizz Beat and Timbaland, announced that the platform has teamed with X. While the musicians touted that it remains Black-owned, the fact that it has essentially teamed with Phony Stark aka Elon Musk—with the announcement made on Juneteenth, no less—meant many people took to social media to comment on the move.
On Wednesday, June 19, VERZUZ announced it had entered into an “exclusive partnership” with X, formerly known as Twitter, for distribution. Swizz and Timbo broke the news themselves while in Cannes, France. Reportedly, the pair had reacquired VERZUZ from their previous partner, Triller. With full control, and touting they’re Black-owned along with equity from artists who participated, their desire for independent distribution has apparently put them in league with Musk.
Source: Timbaland, Elon Musk, Swizz Beatz / Verzuz
“We are beyond thrilled to have found the best partner for Verzuz,” said Swizz in a statement. “Not only are we excited to have Verzuz on X, we’re excited to help X build the biggest entertainment company in the world. I would like to thank Elon Musk, Linda Yaccarino, Brett Weitz, Mitchell Smith and the entire X team for believing in the Verzuz vision. We can’t wait to get to work.”
Added Timbaland, :We are thrilled to partner with X, the most innovative platform globally. Our goal has always been to bring Verzuz to the world which we can now do bigger than ever.”
Swizz and Timbaland say they retain full ownership and creative control of VERZUZ while X will retain the exclusive distribution rights. The plan is that X will only expand VERZUZ’s viewership—touting an audience of over “550 million active users,” allegedly. Viewers will be able to watch the next VERZUZ, an announcement is forthcoming, for the price of Free.99 while being able to chat about the battle all in one location, X.
VERZUZ was beloved as it came to fruition during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had the world indoors looking for ways to interact with each other despite the circumstances. So the platform teaming with X, which is owned by Musk, is getting the side eye. The South African billionaire is known for spouting anit-woke conspiracy theories and allowing racists to run rampant on his platform, which is blatantly the antithesis of what VERZUZ is about.
Don’t take our word for it, check out some of the assorted reactions to VERZUZ partnering with Phony Stark in the gallery.
Universal Music Group has announced a new partnership with SoundLabs, a “responsible” AI music tools company, to provide AI music editing tools to UMG talent. This includes a real-time personalized AI voice clone plug-in, called “MicDrop,” due to launch later this summer.
The SoundLabs AI-powered music editing tools (AU, VST3, AAX) hook up to all major digital audio workstations (DAW), including Logic, ProTools, Ableton and more, to let musicians clean up their vocals, make changes, and even shape-shift their voices in the click of a button, thanks to AI technology. With MicDrop, UMG artists can create their own AI voice models, but these custom models will exclusive to their creative use, not available to the general public.
The news falls perfectly in line with the company’s “responsible” AI strategy, laid out by UMG CEO and chairman, Lucian Grainge, at the beginning of 2024. As he stated in a January memo to staff, obtained by Billboard, Grainge wrote that even though some experts viewed AI as “a looming threat,” UMG’s view was that AI would be “presenting opportunities” for the company. “Just as we did with streaming, we went out to turn those opportunities into reality.”
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He went on to explain his two-prong approach to embracing what he called UMG’s “responsible AI initiative.” First, he would lobby for “guardrails,” or public policies to protect artists’ name, image, voice, and likeness from wrongful impersonation and other “basic rules.”
Second, Grainge set out “to forge groundbreaking private-sector partnerships with AI technology companies,” which now includes its deal with SoundLabs. “In the past, new and often disruptive technology was simply released into the world, leaving the music community to develop the model by which artists would be fairly compensated and their rights protected,” Grainge continued. “In a sharp break with that past, we formed a historic relationship with our longtime partner, YouTube, that gives artists a seat at the table before any product goes to market, including helping to shape AI products’ development and a path to monetization.”
SoundLabs was co-founded by Grammy-nominated producer, composer, software developer and electronic artist BT. After a 25-year career, working with David Bowie, Madonna, Sting, Death Cab for Cutie, Peter Gabriel and Seal, he turned to software development to create new music tools to help producers innovate. Over the years, his software products — including patented audio plugins like Stutter Edit, BreakTweaker (iZotope), Polaris, Phobos (Spirfire Audio) — have generated $70 million in gross sales.
The company’s other co-founders — Joshua Dickinson, Dr. Michael Hetrick and Lacy Transeau — are all aligned with BT on an “artist-first” approach to making AI music tools. As a press release from UMG about the partnership states: “SoundLabs was founded with a foundational respect for intellectual property rights and is focused on helping artists retain creative control over their data and models.”
“It’s a tremendous honor to be working with the forward-thinking and creatively aligned Universal Music Group. We believe the future of music creation is decidedly human. Artificial intelligence, when used ethically and trained consensually, has the promethean ability to unlock unimaginable new creative insights, diminish friction in the creative process and democratize creativity for artists, fans, and creators of all stripes. We are designing tools not to replace human artists, but to amplify human creativity,” says BT.
Chris Horton, svp of strategic technology at Universal Music adds: “UMG strives to keep artists at the center of our AI strategy, so that technology is used in service of artistry, rather than the other way around. We are thrilled to be working with SoundLabs and BT, who has a deep and personal understanding of both the technical and ethical issues related to AI. Through direct experience as a singer and in partnership with many vocal collaborators, BT understands how performers view and value their voices, and SoundLabs will allow UMG artists to push creative boundaries using voice-to-voice AI to sing in languages they don’t speak, perform duets with their younger selves, restore imperfect vocal recordings, and more.”