Billie Eilish, Robert Smith, Stevie Wonder and Nicki Minaj are just a handful of artists who have signed an open letter warning against the “predatory” use of artificial intelligence (AI) in music.
Yesterday (April 2), non-profit organization Artist Rights Alliance issued an open letter titled ‘Stop devaluing music’ about the rise of AI in music, signed by over 200 prominent names in the music industry. Read the full letter here.
The letter states: “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere.”
“Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders. When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods.”
The open letter continues: “Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models. These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created “sounds” and “images” that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”
Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee signed the ELVIS Act to protect musicians’ voices and images from the misuse of AI.
Whether or not artists like it, the use of AI has become more prevalent in the music industry. Last year, Bad Bunny was pissed about a viral AI song trained on his voice; more recently, sexually explicit deepfakes of Taylor Swift went viral.
“From Beale Street to Broadway, to Bristol and beyond, Tennessee is known for our rich artistic heritage that tells the story of our great state,” Lee said while signing the legislation at a live music bar called Robert’s Western World, according to Nashville’s local WKRN News 2. “As the technology landscape evolves with artificial intelligence, I thank the General Assembly for its partnership in creating legal protection for our best-in-class artists and songwriters.”
Country artists Chris Janson and Luke Bryan were in attendance and shared their own stories to support the bill. “I heard a demo a while back,” Janson explained. “I said, ‘I don’t even remember writing that song.’ They went, ‘Uh huh, you didn’t.’ I said, ‘Okay, we got to put a stop to this right now.’”
ELVIS is an acronym that stands for “Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security.” The governor told News 2, “We’ll continue to look at changes, but this was the right thing to do. This is the first of these such bills in America. Obviously, it’s broadly been well-received by the entire industry, so we hope its a blueprint. We hope the country moves this direction, and I’m sure there’ll be strengthening to it in the day, in the years ahead.”
