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Part of the Hollywood strike is about regulating the royalty structure with regards to the use of AI training in acting and script writing.
But no actor, musician, writer or any artist develops their skills in isolation. A big part of training is a lifetime of exposure to the works of masters in the same field along with a more deliberate study of selected works. This is no different than training an AI model.
Musicians aren't required to pay royalties to their influences. Actors don't have to pay royalties to all the actors they grew up watching.
Is AI training an infringement of copyrights or is it a fair use?Last edited by Tal_175; 07-25-2023 at 12:43 PM.
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07-25-2023 09:38 AM
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I think AI is a tool used by a business, it is not and will never be an artist. AI is not a person, and as such, the business using artistic works to make money should have to pay royalties.
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I don't know, but I reckon it won't be too many years before AI can learn to play virtual sampled jazz guitar solos better than the above average professional.
Then we can argue about whether the clips are real.
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There's already AI videos of Sinatra doing Hendrix songs or something like that.
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As far as I know, one's playing can't be copyrighted, or their 'sound' (e.g., gear they use and the set-up) so there can't be any infringement. Thus, I say fair use.
Originally Posted by Tal_175
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We are entering a new wold. Laws or economic structures will have to adjust. … that is what always happens. The big question is, “how much can we limit suffering”, or “how do we create a just society”? I wish people would let go of ideologies and listen to each other. However, with disfunction identify becomes fused with ideology.
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The problem isn't the learning part, but the product. Can a company own an artist's voice, and then proceed to make ten albums with it through AI,, without paying royalties? Or ten films while paying the actor only for a digital scanning done once? Who owns the AI/digital rights?
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AI isn't a creative art. It can however, be programmed to sound similar to humans, or what humans create. The best example of that is how ChatGPT can scan currently existing information on the web, and convert it into what seems like original thinking. Obviously it is not. The same logic applies to any AI program that is aimed at music or lyrics. The chatbot would search the web for requested data, then spit out its interpretation of music or lyrics. Applying natural language processing (NLP), where AI is programmed to read and interpret gobs of pre-existing data, it theoretically could come up with some cool sounding lyrics or music. However, is that an original thought? Nope!
It may be a while, but AI will likely get better at spitting out what may appear to be music or songs, etc. However, I doubt that even the most advanced AI will never be able to replicate the soul of an artist. Time will tell.
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AI is being developed to make money. That's fine. But if they're planning on making dough by 'copying' other's work then paying for the opportunity to do so should be part of the business expense. They'll still make a ton.
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The human act of a student listening to music is very different from the mechanical act of a program assimilating recordings. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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So you can listen and study the music of Bach and extract certain patterns and rules that capture some of his artistic trademark. You can write textbooks and teach those to students (who are paying you tuition) and show them how they can compose using those stylistic and harmonic discoveries of Bach and potentially earn income from those compositions. That's a fair use.
You can even write a music composition program that employs these principles. That's also a fair use (whether or not the result is artistically appealing).
But if you use a computer program to extract those patterns and rules, that's not a fair use? That's the distinction that I'm trying to get at.
I understand the moral dilemma but good luck regulating that.
* It may be that everything is a fair use when it comes to Bach as his works might be in public domain but you get my point. It could be Rick Beato teaching the compositional ideas in Nirvana songs.Last edited by Tal_175; 07-26-2023 at 10:19 AM.
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I would agree that the AI learning is fair use, but as Alter suggested, creating a product from that learning? This is where I'm confused (i.e., don't have a POV). Alter used singing and singers as his example: That AI can learn from Sinatra, but the owners of said AI: can they release a product that mimics Sinatra without paying some type of royalty? Then we have the style of playing for musicians. Originally Posted by Tal_175
My gut says fair use, since people mimic other artists all the time and they don't have to pay any royalty.
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You can do whatever you like with Bach, because he is long dead. His work is not protected by copyright law, so the issue of fair use does not arise. Recordings of performances of his works can be made without asking anyone's permission.
Mechanical copyright, however, applies to any recording: its creator enjoys exclusive rights to it. The maker of a Bach recording can expect royalties from others who use it, in broadcasts or as samples.
AI technology depends on original material: it uses recordings to create music. The creator of the recording could expect to be paid by the maker of the AI technology for the use of the recording.
That said, exceptions from copyright exist, in British copyright law and elsewhere, for works created for purposes of caricature, parody or pastiche. Remixes, mash-ups and samples might be defended from copyright claims as pastiches, and so might AI productions. I do not know if any such defences have been made.
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The thing is, the AI program doesn't take a copy of the recording. It uses it and many others to learn patterns and possibilities of patterns. So there is, I think, something going on that's analogous to a student studying recordings in order to learn how to make original compositions.
Sonewhat related, here's an essay by Calvino examining the consequences of a machine being able to generate text. I thought you might enjoy it if you're not already familiar with it:
The Uses of Literature: Essays - Italo Calvino - Google Books
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Related to your analogy, unless the recording is in the public domain, the student does pay to listen to the recording. Litterick stated "The creator of the recording could expect to be paid by the maker of the AI technology for the use of the recording". Originally Posted by CliffR
Does the AI company have to pay more than the student has to pay? If the same amount as everyday listeners, AI companies would have no problem with that since the current cost, per song, is very inexpensive.
What the artist would want is the right to deny use of their work, and if they grant permission, to be paid on an AI product end-user basis (or per-each listening basis).Last edited by jameslovestal; 07-26-2023 at 05:50 PM.
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Fair point. I was focussed more on AI text learning/generation rather than music. For text, I understand that the Meta/Facebook AI was trained on trillions of words. So the musical equivalent would no doubt involve a lot of recordings to be paid for.
I think paying the artist once for 'listening' is one thing. Paying them for every play of an AI generated product is going to be very difficult. The AI has been trained on so many sources, it's not really possible to say which of those sources were most influential in the AI's decision to place one note after another.
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The analogy between a student vs a neural network learning from artistic works is the premise of this thread.
No doubt the material to be learned from must be legally acquired. But that cost is minimal compared to the investment it takes to build and maintain a system like ChatGpt. You can buy a copy of all the recordings of an artist for a few hundred dollars. Not to mention what you can get for 10 bucks a month on streaming services.
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Originally Posted by CliffR
Many intellectual property cases will depend on how the court interprets a computer's activity. If a court were to decide the actions of a machine were analogous to the greatest human achievement, learning, it would be a dark day for civilisation.
I have not read Calvino for a while. I have ordered it from the library, since Google Books has decided I should not read its copy. Thank you.
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I am sure the AI enterprises presume the source material would be available at no cost. Paying for one thing would set a dangerous precedent. Silicon Valley was built on appropriation, not on fair dealing. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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The AMPTP will come up with some legalese that's well beyond the understanding of the layman and they'll settle, or they'll let the SHTF.
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A. I. is the New Black. Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes. Originally Posted by Tal_175
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Right now, if some human uses a sample of an artist's work, say the voice of James Brown, or a few bars of his songs, he has to pay a commission, get permission, the whole thing. He may get sued for copyright infringement, etc..
However, AI can copy the voice, or the style of the band, and go ahead to create say a new album. The point is that there is no legislation today for that, and being a new field, it's every man for themselves, with the big debate being the rights to these digital footprints.
It's going to take some time still, a few years, but AI is getting pretty competent. I think the struggles of the 21 century for humankind (and not talking just about music) will make the 20th pale in comparison..
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It appears you're implying that the 21st century will have more struggles for humankind than the 20th century. Do you feel the same way about the 20th century compared with the 19th century? What century had the least struggles for humankind? Originally Posted by Alter
Note these questions can be viewed as rhetorical: the point being that it appears you're implying that as technology has progressed this creates more struggles for humankind, and not less.
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after paying a visit to the American Military Cemetary at Cambridge here in England i wanted make a tribute to the men and women...so Dalle -E was downloaded....John Williams score was all i needed.i couldnt beleive the images Dalle-E created...
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Midi was the death blow to real music. That was 35-40 years ago. I got a different job. No regrets. Originally Posted by Alter
It's impossible to predict but access to fresh water could be the biggest obstacle our species has ever faced.
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