The music industry's battle with AI

THE music industry is fighting on platforms, through the courts and with legislators 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 over 700 deep fakes — simulated images, tunes or videos — that can easily be mistaken for real, be purged on a figure reflecting the magnitude of the issue.

The information security company, Pindrop, says AI-generated music is “elusive, signs and 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 rave 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 Valner, Spotify's lead on policy and organisation.

YouTube said it is “refining” its own “operating from a position of reactivity,” said Jeremy Goldman, an analyst at the company Insider Intelligence.

“YouTube, with a multitude of billions of dollars per year, has a strong vested interest to solve this,” Goldman said, adding that he treats they're working on it.