AI In the Music Industry Copyright Law Considerations and Future Potential Uses
Written By: Leah C. Stevenson, Esq.
The rapid advancement and integration of artificial intelligence will soon be prevalent in almost all industries. The entertainment industry is no exception as creative contributions to music, tv scripts, screenplays, and other creative works are being supplemented with AI. Currently, the Writers Guild of America (“WGA”) and the Screen Writers Guild of America (“SAG-AFTRA”) are on strike and while many of their demands include higher pay and better benefits for actors and writers, both the WGA and SAG’s demands discuss the use of AI and how it will impact writers’ creative contributions and the use of AI to adapt and exploit actors’ publicity rights perpetually.
ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot has been used for faster writing, time efficient creative output, and limitless ideas that can be adapted within seconds. Due to the gradual integration of AI in the entertainment industry, there are already concerns that AI will replace writers in tv/film and songwriters, and producers in music. While the industry executives may appreciate the quick way AI chatbots can create specifically tailored concepts and even alleviate writer’s block, the use of AI is increasingly concerning for writers and creatives whose primary job is to come up with these creative ideas in the music and tv/film industries.
While Hollywood’s discussion of AI is on the forefront, the inclusion of AI in many other industries will certainly shift the workplace for many professions. An important question for anyone in the music industry is certainly “How will AI affect the music industry going forward?” AI is already used by major music companies to analyze user data and provide personalized music suggestions to users, but it will certainly take on a more prevalent role in the music industry. Here are five potential ways experts believe AI will be continually integrated into the music industry.
5 Potential Uses for AI in the Music Industry
- Lyric Generation/ Automated Production- AI will help create original music compositions or at least assist songwriters with getting started. AI can assist in the production process by assisting with engineering, mixing, and mastering and can transcribe audio recordings into sheet music or other forms of musical adaption. However, the use of AI in the creative process will trigger the legal implications regarding authorship, ownership, and copyright registration of these creative works.
- Remixing and Mashups- AI can quickly analyze, modify, and remix music by incorporating different styles of pre-existing music.
- Enhanced Music Searches – AI will continue to be used to analyze user data and provide personalized and customized suggestions to listeners which are explicitly tailored to them. This will be used to influence the algorithms for new music, new artists, and playlist suggestions on the digital streaming platforms.
- Monitoring on the internet- AI will be used to monitor copyright infringement and privacy and data protection.
- Royalty distribution—AI will assist with the allocation of revenue, data collection, royalty transparency,
While we hope AI will not replace human creativity and human involvement in the music industry, AI will certainly be used as an innovative tool to assist in the creative process, manage intellectual property, and monitor copyright infringement as well. We cannot predict how the use of AI will advance in the music industry, but we will certainly experience the increased use of AI in all aspects of music creation and distribution.
Copyright Registration of Works generated by AI
The copyright office has already rejected a copyright for AI generated images in a graphic novel while the writer insisted she had simply used AI as a creative innovative tool, this argument was not sufficient to warrant authorship and ownership in the writer. To garner copyright protection, the work must be “unique, original, and fixed in a tangible medium”. While AI generated music made be sufficiently unique and original in nature to qualify for copyright protection, the next step is analyzing whether AI can be deemed an author pursuant to copyright law. The author must be recognized as human by the copyright office and AI produced-work may not be able to warrant copyright protection. Presently, the Copyright Office has yet to provide a circular which addresses AI-created intellectual property, but at this time we should err on the side of caution as any works that use AI tools may not warrant copyright protection.
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