After years of AI rearing its ugly head in the jobs and livelihoods of musicians, the US Copyright Office is ready to listen.
On Wednesday, May 31, the government body will host a virtual session where artists, AI developers, researchers and others will share their hopes and concerns about generative AI regarding recordings of music and sound. Non-speaking attendance is open to the public.
AI today has fewer regulations when it comes to copyrighting. The current copyright infrastructure largely fails to describe best practices and guidelines for creatives to protect their work.
Author Kris Kashtanova recently had his copyright application rejected by the US Copyright Office because he failed to disclose his use of images generated from the popular AI program Midjourney in his registration, according to The Verge. Kashtanova reportedly fed the text prompts that Midjourney’s trained software used to create the images; however, the Copyright Office does not consider it sufficient for “human authorship,” one of the pillars of registering a copyright.
AI is developing rapidly and musicians are using it in detail AI tools to enhance their careers. Grimes recently released a program which allows producers to upload their own acapellas and change them to sound like the famous art-pop star, who announced his intention to allow deep music distribution on streaming platforms for a royalty split.
The US Copyright in Music and Sound Recordings session is scheduled for 1-4pm ET on Wednesday, May 31st. You can register HERE.