Skip to content
The Bridge: Any guesses who’s next up on the creative chopping block? It might be musicians. When traditional artists saw what Dall-E and Midjourney were doing to the world of digital art, many of them panicked and pushed back. The AI art boom is still going, and now the next wave of Artificial content is on the rise. Meet AI generated music – algorithms are stripping lyrics and vocals from popular artists and handing over the tools to anyone who cares to learn how to use them. This means that the Drake song you’re hearing might not be sung by Drake. Anyone with a keyboard can co-opt Beyonce.
Like with other legal disputes within the sphere of Artificial Intelligence, there are no guardrails in place yet. But we might see some interesting developments in the next generation of music: namely, artists may seize this opportunity to make some cash, and any blossoming musician might be able to sound just like their heroes.
Name that tune 🎶
So are kids actually listening to their favorite artists, or do they just like the sound? This will be the real acid test. Musicians are using AI to scrape vocals from popular artists and re-recording their own tunes, but we don’t yet know if these tracks will take off. It might just lead to an oversaturation of terrible music.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is sounding the alarm. They foresee a grim future for artists, where their voices will be pirated as easily as their music.
With the growing interest in decentralization, we might see a very different outcome. That is, if the artists act faster than the pirates.
Play it again, Sam
So here’s the positive side: Imagine a world where artists were actually on board with this new tech development. If they rode the AI wave along with their fans, they could license themselves, make a cut of the profits, and cut way down on recording time.
There’s a precedent for this route – it’s legal, for example, to record a cover of a famous song without explicit permission – as long as you pay the original artist out of your profits.
So this approach isn’t too far-fetched. The only difference is that the musicians are borrowing (or buying) voices from established artists, rather than recording themselves. Plus, it would put a premium on the “actual” musician – their live performances would be hot-ticket items!
It’s a very interesting time in art – whether we’re in a renaissance or the dark ages, however, remains to be seen. We’ll keep our ears open for you! 👂
