YouTube is currently working on protecting artists from AI copycats. This news is coming from the wake of several AI copycats, pouncing and stealing the works of musicians in the industry, and YouTube is now working on a plan to put an end to this. The video streaming giants will be working with UMG.
YouTube Protecting Artists from AI Copycats
Video streaming platform YouTube just announced that it is reportedly working with Universal Music Group (UMG) in a bid to create a new program that would make sure that artists as well as rights holders would be compensated for AI music properly.
The program which is dubbed as YouTube’s Music AI Incubator, will be creating a partnership with music industry talent such as artists, songwriters, and even producers to help decide on how to proceed with the advent of AI music. And according to YouTube, “In 2023 alone, there have been more than 1.7 billion views of videos related to AI tools on YouTube.” And the video hosting and streaming site and platform is interested in harnessing that very level of viewership.
Why Universal Music Group Was Selected For the Partnership
UMG was most likely selected as the first partner for this problem in question simply because of its reservations toward AI, which as you should know is most likely due to the issue of music being fed into algorithms in order to train it and then reportedly recreated into new songs without compensating any of the artists that are involved.
And while it is that UMG has reportedly cracked down on AI music on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube via copyright strikes, thus pulling songs, and filtering out AI tracks, it has also entered a partnership with Endel, an artificial intelligence music company in the early parts of 2023 in a bid to create AI-assisted music. This goes to show you that it does have a willingness to work with AI, but rather on its own terms.
UMG’s Take on AI in the Music Industry
UMG according to Rolling Stone, repeatedly stated that there is potential for AI to assist artists in the song-making process. Music industry stakeholders, however, on the other hand, should draw a hard line on practices that reportedly infringe on the intellectual property of artists and then draw ears away from ‘real’ human-produced music.
It quite seems that YouTube also understands that desire to both utilize AI as a tool in assisting artists, as well as set up structures that would help to guarantee permission and compensation for any music that is used to train these AI models.
The official blog post of the platform discusses just how streaming platform YouTube has balanced protecting the rights of copyright holders with users over the last couple of years, as well as its content ID on the other hand that “ensures rights holders get paid for use of their content and has generated billions for the industry over the years.”
YouTube’s Policies in Protecting against Manipulated Content on Its Platform
YouTube also noted its existing policies that help to protect against “technically manipulated content” that could easily be utilized to mislead users or even make false claims. And it will definitely work to apply new standards to ensure that AI isn’t used for “trademark and copyright abuse, misinformation, spam, and more.”
YouTube’s Take on the Recent Development
YouTube CEO Neal Mohan regarding the matter stated that “I’m incredibly excited about the opportunity of AI to supercharge creativity around the world, but recognize that YouTube and the promise of AI will only be successful if our partners are successful.” We will get to see just how much that statement holds to be true, but all depends on the success of this program.
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