News broke recently that Warner Music has reached an agreement with Suno to regulate the production of music "made in AI". Under this agreement, the artists on whom the platform's music is based will be compensated for the use of their work as a template, according to a specific copyright agreement to be established between Warner and Suno.
Seems like the new model will be able to recognize in which percentage an AI track is based from existing copyrighted music and establishes the correct distribution of royalties.
Furthermore, with the new model due out in 2026, Suno will no longer allow free users to download tracks, only sharing. Downloading the generated tracks requires a subscription fee, which also limits the number of downloadable tracks.
Mikey Shulman, CEO, Suno said: “Our partnership with Warner Music unlocks a bigger, richer Suno experience for music lovers, and accelerates our mission to change the place of music in the world by making it more valuable to billions of people. Together, we can enhance how music is made, consumed, experienced and shared. This means we’ll be rolling out new, more robust features for creation, opportunities to collaborate and interact with some of the most talented musicians in the world, all while continuing to build the biggest music ecosystem possible.”
Let me translate this to you.
SUNO: "We are not making enough money from AI generated music. Users subscription are not actually making us a real profit. So we are creating a new model that forces people to subscribe and pay a higher fee under the promise that their money are going to pay the real artists our AI-generated music is based out of. But we are a tech company. We don't give a fuck about art and artists. We just want your money, and we are going to get them, one way or another.🤑"
WARNER: "Agree. Also, once we train Suno algorithm on our own artists music, we'll be able to make our own AI artists, which we don't have to pay because they're not humans. We'll flood streaming platforms with this shit I don't even care to listen because it's dumb. And all the royalties we get from subscribers fees, both on Suno and streaming platforms, will go directly into our pockets. Amazing! No more stupid artsy people to deal with!🤑"
Here's the full article: https://www.wmg.com/news/warner-music-group-and-suno-forge-groundbreaking-partnership
And here's a recent rant on AI music from mister "internet busiest music nerd" Anthony Fantano:
Tell me something different from #fuckAI in the comments, thanks.
If you're curious about who I am and what I do you can visit my website harbiter.com or my Instagram.
Check my music NFTs collection on NFT Showroom
In a world where “human beings” matter less and less, this comes as no surprise, because we are also becoming less critical of the amount of waste we consume every day. You did a good job translating!😄
It's just sad to see how all this new technology developed everyday feels more like a guillotine slowly coming down to our heads instead of something actually helping humanity. It will start cutting our neck inch by inch and we'll slowly kill ourselves like that frog in boiling water
And unlike with writing, and visual media, the vast majority are not sophisticated enough musically to tell the difference.
Go to concerts, I say. Go see live shows. A robot won't be on stage playing a guitar or mournfully making eye contact with a person in the audience as performer and fan sing their hearts out.
I feel blessed to be passionate about concerts. Even when I'm looking for new music, I always tend to dive into projects that I know I have a chance to see live one day. That's the best way to avoid AI slop, but also lazy producers
I don't much get people being excited about AI "art" - it's among the creepiest things this endlessly-surprising century has brought us, not to mention most dangerous. A world in which art-making is taken from the humans is not a world I'd like to live in.
one of the most controversial topics in the music space, for sure.
personally, i haven't been in resistance - embracing technological changes, and am even possibly a bit excited about what could come of it, as it sort of forces an evolution of artistry. i.e. if anybody can use AI to make the same types of music people have been, how are artists going to adapt and start innovating in ways AI can't (yet)...?
and to be bluntly critical, there is already SO much manmade music that hasn't even been anything particularly original or different - so much commercial stuff especially has been a regurgitation of same chord progressions, melodies, styles, etc, etc. some seem offended by AI doing what they do... while they're just doing the same stuff countless others are doing. if AI can duplicate what people make... is it really AI that's the problem, or that there aren't enough artists pushing boundaries into new territory that stands out from both what AI and other artists make...? like so much stuff coming outta Hollywood & K-pop - they're already products of an industrial machine. the "artists" are already pretty much an interchangeable face, in alot of cases, with the songwriting & production done via time-tested commercially-viable formulas. The RARE artists doing something different have always stood out, even if not "commercially successful" - and always will... perhaps especially moreso now, given that there's just an increasing amount of content (irregardless of whether manmade or AI-made) indistinguishable from the rest.
(and you're kind of a good case-study here: testing, fusing, alchemizing boundaries as blending metal & techno - still living & breathing as an artist that stands for something, bringing heart & soul into your art as experimenting in uncommon territory... and may continue to make discoveries and create what AI cannot, as expanding your engineering capacities in tandem, not just songwriting, but architecting soundscapes & sonic aesthetics. And IF you were to bring some AI tools into the picture as components for parts of those processes, all the power to ya - and the outcomes would be something that AI alone could still not do.)
and surely, there will be artists that embrace the technology as a tool - using it constructively as a collaborator, doing stuff that could've previously be possible. i.e. there's a difference between just creating a song from a single prompt and using AI tools as one/some of many in a larger creation process. like the old saying goes: "I thought using drum samples was cheating, so I got a real drum machine and sampled my own. I thought using a drum machine was cheating, so I got a real drum set and learned how to play and record it. I thought buying a drum set was cheating, so I learned how to stretch some pig skin over some hollow wood. I thought buying pig skin and hollowed wood was cheating so I bought a a pig pen and some trees…"
☯️😎🍻