Curated from Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion — Here’s what matters right now:
AI-generated music is becoming more widespread but not necessarily popular . And that's just the publicly acknowledged AI music. Now, artists are dealing with seeing their name and voice attached to music they never performed or approved of, even if they passed away decades ago. The most recent high-profile incident occurred when English folk singer Emily Portman heard from a fan who liked her new release, except the album , Orca, though released under her name, was entirely fake. The whole thing had been pushed live on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and other major platforms without her knowledge or consent. A post shared by Emily Portman (@emilyportman) A photo posted by on Portman took to social media to warn her fans about what was happening. The fact that the AI could mimic her artistic style well enough to trick some fans just added to the creep factor. It took weeks for Spotify to address the problem, and you can still see the album on Spotify even if the music is gone. Portman joins a litany of acts, from pop artist Josh Kaufman to country artists Blaze Foley, who passed away in 1989, and Guy Clark, who died in 2016, in having her work mimicked by AI without her approval. It seems we’ve moved past the novelty of AI remixes and deepfake duets into digital identity theft with a beat. The thieves are often good at being quiet in their releases, able to score whatever royalties might trickle in. Further, even getting the music taken down might not be enough. A few days after the initial incident, Portman found another album had popped up on her streaming page. Except this time, it was just nonsense instrumentals, with no effort to sound like the musician. AI's future sounds Having scammers use AI to steal from actual artists is obviously a travesty. There are some blurry middle grounds, of course, like never-real musicians pretending to be humans. That's where AI-generated “band” Velvet Sundown stands. The creators later admitted the origin of the AI band, but only after millions of plays from a Spotify profile showing slightly uncanny images of bandmates that didn’t exist. As the music was original and not directly ripped from other songs, it wasn’t a technical violation of any copyright laws. The band didn’t exist, but the royalties sure did. I think AI has a place in music. I really like how it can help the average person, regardless of technical or musical skills, produce a song. And AI tools are making it easier than ever to generate music in the style of someone else. But, with streaming platforms facing 99,000 uploads a day, most of which are pushed through third-party distributors that rely on user-submitted metadata, it’s not hard to slip something fake into a real artist’s profile. Unless someone notices and complains, it just sits there, posing as the real thing. Many fans are tricked, with some believing Orca was really Emily Portman’s new album. Others streamed Velvet Sundown, thinking they’d stumbled onto the next Fleetwood Mac. And
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Original reporting: Latest from TechRadar US in News,opinion