The music industry's battle with AI

THE music industry is fighting on platforms, through the courts and with AI-generated hits in a bid to prevent the theft and misuse of art from generative AI — but it remains an uphill battle.

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Sony Music said recently it has already demanded that 75 000 deepfakes — simulated images, tunes or videos that can easily be mistaken for real — be rooted out, a figure reflecting the magnitude of the issue.

The information security company Pindrop says AI-generated music has “telltale signs” and is easy to detect, yet such music seems to be everywhere.

“Even when it sounds realistic, AI-generated songs often have subtle irregularities in frequency variation, rhythm and digital patterns that aren’t present in human performances,” said Pindrop, which specialises in voice analysis.

But it takes mere minutes on YouTube or Spotify — two top music streaming platforms — to spot a fake rap from 2Pac or Ariana Grande cover of a K-pop track that she never performed.

“We take that really seriously, and we’re trying to work on new tools in that space to make that even better,” said Sam D’Amatoff, Spotify’s lead on policy operations.

YouTube said it is “refining” its own ability to spot AI dupes, and could announce results in the coming weeks.

“The bad actors were a little bit more aware sooner,” leaving artists, labels and others in the music business “operating from a position of reactivity,” said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at the company Insider Intelligence.