Sony Declares War On AI Music, But For All The Wrong Reasons
AI companies across the globe, especially the ones working in the music industry, have been blamed for the indiscriminate use of copyrighted work to train their respective AI models. In January 2024, artists rallied against AI engine Stable Diffusion in a class-action suit over stolen art. In October 2023, music label Universal Music Group sued an upstart AI company, Anthropic, over similar accusations. Now, another major music giant, Sony Music, is drawing a line in the sand.
According to the Financial Times, Sony Music, which oversees subsidiaries Sony Music Publishing (SMP) and Sony Music Entertainment (SME), has warned tech companies working in the field of AI not to mine data owned by Sony Music to train their AI models without explicit permission. The company individually contacted 700-odd AI companies — including biggies like Google, Microsoft, and Open AI — intimating them about this development, and Sony also posted a public notice on its website. The interesting part about Sony's declaration is the fact that it encompasses a wide variety of musical artwork, ranging from lyrics and compositions to recordings and images.
In addition to addressing AI companies using musical data to train their respective AI models, Sony Music also sent a notice to popular music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, asking them to adopt protective measures for artists.
Where does Sony stand legally?
Given the sheer newness of AI technology, there is a lot of ambiguity on the legal aspects of data mining and scraping. The issue has already come to a head on multiple occasions, including when an AI-generated Drake song (which Drake didn't participate in) got nominated for a Grammy.
Some argue that the use of existing musical content constitutes fair use, and that AI music generators are a tool that can help artists produce. However, others argue that stakeholders — especially creators — should be monetarily compensated if AI companies use their work. In April 2024, more than 200 artists, including Billie Eilish, Jon Bon Jovi, and Stevie Wonder, signed an open letter asking tech companies to "cease the use of artificial intelligence to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists."
In the case of Sony Music, the company hasn't taken action against any individual AI development companies thus far. For now, Sony is just warning AI companies and data scrapers, perhaps to avoid potential lawsuits. Interestingly, Sony's letter also demands that these companies share whether they have used content owned by Sony to train their AI models. If so, Sony is asking them to detail how they accessed the songs and how long copies of these songs remained on their systems. It remains to be seen whether the company's new take on content scraping to train AI models stands in U.S courts, if challenged.