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Text based Music AI programs - AI making music

After mucking around with Udio some more, I am still of the opinion that it doesnt generate by mixing its training sources in a subtle enough way to disguise how blatantly it is ripping off specific artists and their music.

Too much of its output is far too familiar. And, for example, sometimes it rips off multiple elements associated with the source artist, without being prompted to at all.

For example, note how it has ripped off Siouxsie and the Banshees in the following example. It didnt just rip off the voice, it used their type of guitar sound too! And the prompt I used, in my usual wacky way, was only "brutalist 1982 synthesizer industrial chanting cathedral doom sausage" so its not like I asked it to lean in this direction.


Its very clever but its dodgy as fuck. And I suspect its doing this sort of thing all the time. But my ability to notice is obviously affected by how familiar I am with the original source material.
 
elbows said:
After mucking around with Udio some more, I am still of the opinion that it doesnt generate by mixing its training sources in a subtle enough way to disguise how blatantly it is ripping off specific artists and their music.

Too much of its output is far too familiar. And, for example, sometimes it rips off multiple elements associated with the source artist, without being prompted to at all.

For example, note how it has ripped off Siouxsie and the Banshees in the following example. It didnt just rip off the voice, it used their type of guitar sound too! And the prompt I used, in my usual wacky way, was only "brutalist 1982 synthesizer industrial chanting cathedral doom sausage" so its not like I asked it to lean in this direction.


Its very clever but its dodgy as fuck. And I suspect its doing this sort of thing all the time. But my ability to notice is obviously affected by how familiar I am with the original source material.
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AI music is, by definition, a rip off of real musicians. It's machine learning, so its output is simply a calculation based on inputs. But how much different is it to a human in that regard? Is it much different to an artist whose music was influenced by another artist? It's a tricky one, which will, no doubt, result in copyright lawyers rubbing their hands in glee.
 
Saul Goodman said:
AI music is, by definition, a rip off of real musicians. It's machine learning, so its output is simply a calculation based on inputs. But how much different is it to a human in that regard? Is it much different to an artist whose music was influenced by another artist? It's a tricky one, which will, no doubt, result in copyright lawyers rubbing their hands in glee.
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IANAL, but I think 'style' can't be copyrighted. You can't be done for sounding like another artists - only if you nick their lyrics and/or melodies.

But someone has already copyrighted every single melody ever, so you can't make anything without breaking copyright now: Two musicians used an algorithm to create every single melody possible. Ever.
 
Saul Goodman said:
AI music is, by definition, a rip off of real musicians. It's machine learning, so its output is simply a calculation based on inputs. But how much different is it to a human in that regard? Is it much different to an artist whose music was influenced by another artist? It's a tricky one, which will, no doubt, result in copyright lawyers rubbing their hands in glee.
Click to expand...
Yes but there is no way this service is distilling things enough. I've messed around with machine learning visuals a lot and they are more subtle than this. Some of that might be down to music being even more tightly integrated into our memories and emotional core, but I still think theres something about the way Udio are doing it that is way too blatant. Even if it was just making sure to only imitate certain aspects of known artists rather than the whole package in one lump, it would reduce this feeling. If I knew the technical detail of their system I would probably understand better why some of the results are so blatant.
 
elbows said:
Yes but there is no way this service is distilling things enough. I've messed around with machine learning visuals a lot and they are more subtle than this. Some of that might be down to music being even more tightly integrated into our memories and emotional core, but I still think theres something about the way Udio are doing it that is way too blatant. Even if it was just making sure to only imitate certain aspects of known artists rather than the whole package in one lump, it would reduce this feeling. If I knew the technical detail of their system I would probably understand better why some of the results are so blatant.
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I agree with this, btw. It does sound like it's copying much more than other generative AIs. But I still don't think it's copyright infringement, due to comments in previous post.

Grey areas all over the place.
 
Fez909 said:
IANAL, but I think 'style' can't be copyrighted. You can't be done for sounding like another artists - only if you nick their lyrics and/or melodies.
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When it comes to the legal stuff in this respect, we probably have years to come of legal stuff exploring the new machine learning legal angles, such as whether intellectual property rights have been broken during the training process.

There are potentially some other considerations too, to do with image rights and distinctive voices and the context that the resulting work is used in. Just to give one example, if you use such things for product endorsement you can get in legal bother, as Tom Waits demonstrated many years ago:

 
Drake used AI in a diss track against kendrick, to sound like tupac and snoop's have a verse each.... this is pretty creative

you can rely on hip hop to take new technology and use it in unforeseen cool ways
 
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2 weeks ago when "like that" with Kendrick's brutal verse on it came out noone really gave Drake a chance against Kendrick, but now after drake's 2 drops including this one I'd say majority have him winning currently... it is a "never been done before" move.

this is the kendrick verse that started it, the tune is better tbh but drake's responses have switched up everything
 
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the tune itself is mid and thrown off, but that is kind of the point.... in the context of it being ultimately disrespectful it is on a whole other level (and also kind of subverts the whole idea of AI imo; it is saying "look I can make your hero say whatever I want about you"). I look forward to the response anyway, it is fun.
 
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