THE Artists Rights Alliance recently initiated a petition aimed at addressing concerns surrounding the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in music production and its potential implications for the music industry.
In response, numerous artistes and songwriters, including prominent figures like Katy Perry, Billie Eilish, Miranda Lambert and Smokey Robinson, have endorsed an open letter released earlier this month.
“We, the undersigned members of the artistes and songwriting communities, call on AI developers, technology companies, platforms, and digital music services to cease the use of AI to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.
“Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and enable the development of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere. Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artistes, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders,” the petition said.
It called on all AI developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services to pledge that they will not develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content or tools that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artistes or deny the artistes fair compensation for their work.
The petition has garnered support from a multitude of artistes, including Billy Porter, Brothers Osborne, Camila Cabello, Darius Rucker, Finneas, Imagine Dragons, J Balvin, Jonas Brothers, Jon Bon Jovi, Kate Hudson, Metro Boomin, Noah Kahan, Norah Jones, Pearl Jam, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder, Zayn Malik and more.
In recent months, there has been a growing concern among artistes about the rise of AI-generated music. Queen’s Brian May expressed his apprehension about the issue during an interview with Guitar Player in September, highlighting the potential blurring of lines between AI-generated and human-created music.
“My major concern with it now is in the artistic area. I think by this time next year, the landscape will be completely different. We won’t know which way is up. We won’t know what’s been created by AI and what’s been created by humans,” May stated.
He expressed his apprehension about the future dominance of AI-generated music in the industry, suggesting that 2023 could mark a significant shift away from human-dominated music creation.
