Since AI can take a written command and create a image, movieOR SONG within seconds, the process can seem almost magical at first glance.
However, there are key legal issues that continue under it excel. Does the company behind the AI model have permission to use the work of numerous human artists, writers and musicians without compensating them? Are they allowed to use copyrighted works? These questions are at the center STILL another The AI legal tussle over what companies can and can't use to train new AI models.
Major record companies, including Sony Music, Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Records, teamed up to DOSSIER two historic cases on Monday, one against Microsoft partnership Suno and the other against Backed by Andreessen Horowitz Share it.
Both startups use AI to turn user-written requests into songs.
of EVENT v. Suno, filed in the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts, accused the AI company of using copyrighted music to train its AI model and then charging a monthly fee for the simulated sound.
“Like any other market participant, Suno cannot reproduce copyrighted works for commercial purposes without permission,” the filing said.
Suno has the potential to disrupt the music market with AI-generated music, according to the filing. The company already has over 10 million users and some songs have more than 2 million plays.
According to the filing, music from Suno competes directly with human music on public streaming platforms. The AI startup allegedly did not ask the human authors behind the music for permission to use the work, nor did it credit or compensate them.
The record labels claimed that without legal restrictions, AI-generated music could replace, “rather than support, genuine human creativity”.
Udio faced similar complaints in a EVENT filed by the same record companies in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Udio is “already said to be producing 10 music files per second, which equates to 864,000 files per day” or more than six million files per week, per folder.
The record companies are seeking up to $150,000 for each work infringed by Suno and Udio.
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Suno and Udio are relatively small AI startups compared to bigger players like OpenAI, maker of $80 billion ChatGPT. Suno is rated with 500 million dollars and Udio GOING in April with $10 million in seed funding.
However, the question of what constitutes acceptable AI training data extends beyond the two companies.
In April, an internal report FOUND that OpenAI and Google may have used human-generated YouTube videos to train their AI models. None of the people behind the videos received credit or compensation for their contributions.
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On the other hand, Andreessen Horowitz arguing in October that using copyrighted material to train AI models is fair use.
“The reason they do not infringe copyright is that this copying serves a non-exploitative purpose: to extract information from the works and put it to use,” the venture capital firm wrote.
Imposing a cost or copyright liability on tech companies would shut out small startups and cost American AI innovation, Andreessen Horowitz said.
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