'Top Music Attorney' discusses the latest US AI Copyright Problems

[Martin Walker]

Posted just a few hours ago, this is an in depth discussion by well-known 'Top Music Attorney' on her YouTube channel of the latest US legal ramifications concerning what does and does not constitute copyrightable material where AI tools have been involved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy08U3gEU8w

Here's a screengrab of the recap to illustrate the scope of this discussion:

I found it fascinating, and while there may be differences in legality here across the pond, most of it nevertheless makes an awful lot of sense, particularly the concept of 'demonstrable human effort' when interacting with an AI tool.

See what you think!

[Zukan]

The Recording Academy's views on this subject:
https://www.recordingacademy.com/about/ ... telligence

The Academy has many other links to various discussions on this subject if anyone fancies going down that particular rabbit hole.

The laws will be fine-tuned as AI develops and takes a stronger hold of our industry.

It is, however, a minefield to navigate.

[amanise]

Exhausting! I'm so glad I'm not her.

It's hard to agree or disagree with much of that from a British perspective - although I did find myself nodding in agreement surprisingly often. I'm glad you can't claim copyright protection for just banging in a couple of very high level prompts, for example. A lot of what she said about copyright registration would seem more important there in the US than here in UK for example, being able to reclaim your legal fees if someone sues you - if you have copyright registration. As I understand it, if you get vexatiously sued in the US you're still liable to pay the fees required to mount a defence. Not so here, where those fees would be paid by the losing side.

As for the academy, I did check my eligibility for membership so that I might help support creatives - but I'm either too obscure, too crap, or too old (the last option was Academy U which is not open to over 30s). So that's a whole ton of stuff I don't have to worry about any more. Where did I put my cup of Horlicks? Must ward off the night starvation.

[Drew Stephenson]

Yeah, I watched this earlier. She's not actually correct on one point though, AI generated works DO get copyright in the UK. See point 15 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... 0framework.

Also she's over-simplifying on the purpose of copyright right at the beginning and that common mis-framing is getting increasingly pertinent as we move into a new era of mechanically-generated content.
The misconception is that the purpose of copyright is to reward creators, but that's back to front. The purpose is to encourage creation, the mechanism is a limited-term, government-backed monopoly.
Hence non-human generated works don't get copyright, because fundamentally they don't need an incentive to create.

[amanise]

Interesting. It's hard to imagine what it would be like to be offered an incentive to create.

[Drew Stephenson]

Set up a patreon site and see.

[amanise]

Set up a patreon site and see.

Just had a bit of a look at their site and Wiki entry. Fine idea - I haven't heard or seen that angle before. Almost worth a discussion thread of its own to see what other experiences we have of their model...

[Drew Stephenson]

My research around it, at a very high level, says it's good for people who already have a following; but not much cop for trying to build one.
It should be in the toolbox for any independent artist though.

[amanise]

And so, then, the reason why not for me would be well described here;

https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/view ... hp?t=93403