Industry

Music Business Worldwide:

Believe has developed software that detects AI-music with 98% accuracy. What might this mean for the future.

This article found on Music Businesses Worldwide talks about Believe, the French record label and distributor stating that “We do not wish to distribute and we are not to distribute any content that is 100% created by AI, whether that is Believe or at [Believe subsidiary] TuneCore.” They also stated that they were working on technology that would 99.9% accuracy rate, although it seems they have only 98% success for AI generated songs and 93% for 'deep fakes' (a video of a person in which their face or body has been digitally altered so that they appear to be someone else, typically used maliciously or to spread false information.)

The issue with these AI generated songs it that they are always based off something in the real music world so it can be seen as stealing. Bad Bunny released a statement on his social media saying that he was fully against a recent AI song that mimicked his vocals. 

The song being referred to was released by FlowGPT and also had AI Justin Bieber vocals and ended up going viral with over 20 million plays on TikTok, which is where a it of these songs are being posted. 

Now most platforms such as YouTube and Spotify have taken down most of these AI songs after it created an outrage within the music industry and many other artists calling it out. However, they can still be found easily on TikTok and downloaded on Soundcloud.

In September of this year Universal Music Group sued the San Fransisco headquartered AI company anthropic alleging “systematic and widespread infringement of their copyrighted song lyrics”.

   The BBFC:

The BBFC or British Board of Film Classification founded by the British film industry used to be known as the British Board of Film Censors before it was rebranded due to the word censors being quite controversial.

• It is the UK’s regulator for film and video responsible for providing age ratings.

• The BBFC is a statutory regulator meaning that it has legal force as a law has been passed that all films need to be rated my them, and it is also a self-regulator meaning that the industry regulates itself.
• Licensing legislation is what gives the BBFC the power to regulate film in the UK: the Video Recordings Act (VRA) 1984 empowers them to apply the test of whether content is suitable for watching at home - considering the potential for under-age viewing.
• Local authorities grant licences to the cinemas in their area. When a cinema applies for a licence, it must include a condition requiring the admission of children to any film to normally be restricted in accordance with BBFC age ratings.
• Local authorities can ignore the BBFC’s decisions at any time although it is rare. For example, in 2002 when local authorities changed the rating of Spiderman from 12 to PG. They are also able to ban certain films.
• BBFC may not pass any material likely to infringe the criminal law. The key legislation for the BBFC in this area is The Obscene Publications Act 1959 and 1964, The Cinematograph Films (Animals) Act 1937, The Animal Welfare Act 2006 and The Protection of Children Act 1978.

The Big three:

The music industry has three conglomerates which have the largest market share also known as the big 3. This big three consists of Warner Music Group (WMG), Universal Music Group (UMG), and Sony. 

Warner Music Group:

Warner music group is an American congometate based in New York "employs more than 3,500 people and has operations in more than 50 countries throughout the world", "operates some of the largest and most successful labels in the world, including Elektra Records, Reprise Records, Warner Records, Parlophone Records" and represents artists such as Beyonce.

Sony Music:

Sony Music is an American conglomerate owned by Sony. Represent artists such as Britany Spears and Christina Agulera.

Universal Music Group:

Universal Music Group is a Dutch- American conglomerate which represents artists such as Florence + The machine, Daddy Yankee and Conan Gray

How did 90s Eurodance Swedish band Rednex become the most played artist in the world?

Rendex’s song “Cotton Eye Joe” released in 1994has been heard by 4% of the worlds population.

The band let their fans know on their YouTube channel that their song got 3 billion views in 26 days due to a viral meme that used it (here), this beat Adeles record from her song "Hello" which received 1 billion views in 87 days. 

“This event was created thanks to millions of video creators generating billions of fragmented plays of Rednex’s music, rather than as a result of the traditional way of listening,” commented Reiniz. “It will be a challenge for the music industry to reflect these various counts in charts and measurements and even poses the question, ‘Is the basic use and concept of music itself changing?’”