Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Desmond Child To Meet With Congressmen to Push for Legislation on AI
Several high-profile songwriters including Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis and Desmond Child will take to Capitol Hill this week to push lawmakers to protect musicians’ copyrights amid the rapidly developing rise of artificial intelligence.
Part of the performing rights organization ASCAP’s’ “Stand with Songwriters” advocacy day, the writers’ push — expected Thursday morning — marks the latest effort from the industry to rein in AI and ensure that recording artists’ and musicians’ well-being is prioritized as the technology advances.
“We would like to see lawmakers show the well deserved respect to the human creators of music by standing up and enforcing copyright laws to make sure the rights to control the works we own and create are protected,” Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis said in a statement.
The rise of AI is one of the most pressing topics in the music business. Companies like Splice and Soundful have proven capable of generating AI-created beats and songs at the push of a button, while AI voice cloning tools have helped songwriters produce viral (and controversial) songs that make impressive mimics of superstar artists like Drake and Travis Scott. The voice-cloning tech in particular caused a major stir in the music industry earlier this year after an anonymous songwriter made a popular song using the cloned vocals of Drake and the Weeknd.
The song lasted on streaming services for just two days before Universal Music Group, the record label for Drake and the Weeknd, pushed for the song to be taken down.
The legality of using artists’ pre-existing songs to train AI to make new music is murky, and the industry wants legislation passed that will state clearly that such practices can only be done legally with copyright holders’ permission.
“The speed of the development is a little concerning,” Jam and Lewis said. “If an AI company trained on all our songs without permission, and then started generating songs in our style without permission we would feel violated. We don’t want AI profiting from other people’s hard work. We want our creative work and our copyrights to be protected. If we can ensure that creators control and benefit from this new use of their works, and have the AI tools they can use to their own advantage, that’s truly a win-win that opens a lot of exciting new doors for the creative community.”
Overall, some of the business’s most prominent executives have looked to strike a message of cautious optimism regarding AI, noting concerns on exploiting copyright but also the potential for AI to help musicians make music easier and do things that weren’t previously possible.
“Given this tension, our challenge and opportunity as an industry is to establish effective tools, incentives and rewards – as well as rules of the road – that enable us to limit AI’s potential downside while promoting its promising upside,” UMG CEO Lucian Grainge wrote in a blog post after the company announced a partnership with YouTube to analyze AI. “If we strike the right balance, I believe AI will amplify human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways.”
Beyond ASCAP’s advocacy day, some of the music business’s largest stakeholders have spent much of 2023 getting versed on how AI will shape the future of the industry and pushing to proceed in ways that don’t diminish the value of their copyrights. The Recorded Industry Association of America, which represents the big three major record labels, spearheaded the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition across entertainment and sports that calls for copyright to protect “human intellectual creativity.”
ASCAP’s CEO Elizabeth Matthews echoed those sentiments in a statement ahead of the advocacy day. “Artificial intelligence is moving at the speed of light and we need lawmakers to act now,” Matthews said. “We fully embrace innovation but only innovation coupled with regulation that protects the rights of creators.”