Universal Music Group’s chief digital officer, Michael Nash, took the stage on the United Nations’ AI for Good summit in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday (July 8) to debate how the music trade — and UMG extra particularly — is approaching generative AI.
“Common’s technique on AI is predicated on a easy philosophy: Middle the dialog on artists, defend their rights and pursuits, and from that basis, forge new industrial and artistic alternatives,” Nash stated.
Additionally throughout his discuss, Nash careworn the place that “copyright shouldn’t be the enemy of innovation” and that “market-based options are the reply” to the challenges AI poses to mental property-based industries like music. “When you don’t declare a seat on the dinner desk, you would possibly wind up on the menu,” he warned.
Nash’s feedback on the summit come simply weeks after it was reported that UMG — together with fellow main music firms Warner Music Group and Sony Music — had been in talks with prime AI music companies Suno and Udio to create an AI music licensing construction. Ought to that occur, it’s anticipated that it could settle the majors’ present blockbuster lawsuit towards the AI firms. In that lawsuit, filed in June 2024, the majors alleged that Suno and Udio had been engaged within the copyright infringement of their sound recordings on “an virtually unimaginable scale.”
Learn a transcript of Nash’s keynote speech under:
Good night. Thanks for that sort intro, Don. I’m Michael Nash, the Chief Digital Officer of Common Music, the place I’ve led digital technique for the previous decade.
It’s an honor to have this chance to spotlight why music issues drastically to this dialog about “AI for Good.”
To higher perceive music’s significance to this dialog… Let’s begin with the significance of music.
You’ll not be shocked to listen to an government from Common Music say, as a place to begin, “Music is Common.”
Music engages an enormous world viewers.
It’s the soundtrack of life on this planet.
About half the world’s inhabitants is actively engaged.
The truth is, music is the most well-liked type of leisure in dozens of developed international locations, the place as much as 90% of adults hearken to music on a month-to-month foundation…
…With internet-enabled followers spending over 20 hours per week on common listening to music.
Much more necessary than these engagement stats…
Music drives tradition worldwide. Because it has for hundreds of years.
Complete scientific analysis definitively concludes that music is integral to each society ever studied and pervades social life the world over…
Proving out the immortal phrases of Longfellow:
“Music is the common language of humankind.”
However music is not only a common language…
It’s a common power for good…bringing connection, expression, communion and enrichment to lives in each nook of the world.
Past music’s elementary position in tradition…We’re gaining a greater understanding of how music promotes well being and wellbeing.
Neuroscientific revelations have established how music considerably influences cognitive, emotional and bodily capabilities of the mind. Backed by this rising physique of analysis, music is now being deployed in superior therapeutic and breakthrough medical purposes.
This builds on what we’ve all the time identified: that music is a strong power for good within the minds, hearts and lives of individuals in all places.
With this understanding of music’s better goal, let’s transfer into the dialog about technological disruption.
For effectively over a century, for the reason that creation of sound replica and radio, music has been located on the slicing fringe of tech transformation…
Simply one among many examples—this one fairly related to the implications of AI—Peter Gabriel’s pioneering incorporation of digital synthesizers within the Nineteen Eighties… (Play)
As the following main milestone on this journey of technological disruption and transformation, we imagine AI might be instrumental to the way forward for music.
Nevertheless, it’s essential to emphasise that AI will notice its potential to remodel the way forward for music by way of the voices and visions of artists…
Sure, the scope of technological disruption could also be unprecedented with AI, however that doesn’t change a elementary reality:
It’s artists who’ve all the time formed world tradition. (Mosaic Transition Performs)
And that’s why Common’s technique on AI is predicated on a easy philosophy: Middle the dialog on artists…
…defend their rights and pursuits….
…and from that basis, forge new industrial and artistic alternatives.
To maximise inventive collaboration with expertise, you have to begin from a basis constructed on copyright and related rights.
In fact it’s important that we energetically defend our artists’ pursuits. You possibly can’t forge new enterprise fashions with “non-rights.” When you don’t declare a seat on the dinner desk, you would possibly wind up on the menu.
Working from our philosophy, we imagine that market-based options are the reply.
We’ve enabled quite a few entrepreneurs…and are working with a variety of main tech platforms…in introduced partnerships and with vital licensing offers within the works.
The anti-copyright premise of some AI trade commentators is deeply flawed.
Copyright shouldn’t be the enemy of innovation.
Fairly the other: Media/Tech convergence predicated on respect for copyright has produced a multi-trillion-euro financial system….
…And that began with Apple: marrying iPod with iTunes in 2003 as a essential early step, embracing licensed music, to create the primary trillion-dollar firm.
Jobs wrote the blueprint. Now Google, Amazon, Meta and others are following in numerous methods with their very own music and content material methods. Tech collaboration with the inventive group, respecting the worth of artists’ work and harnessing their innovation, has produced monumental cultural and financial profit.
Classes discovered within the first quarter of this century are why we imagine the way forward for AI Music might be realized by unlocking new inventive collaborations.
The way forward for AI music won’t be the regurgitation of by-product knock offs of artists’ music to cannibalize their present market. Who desires that? It is going to be activated by placing new instruments within the fingers of artists to allow them to increase the market and create new experiences for his or her followers in partnership with technologists. That is how AI will promote innovation and advance tradition.
Let’s have a look at some examples of those collaborations and the way they’re being fostered.
An necessary basis in profitable collaboration is being promoted by inventive group alliances…and Common has taken a really energetic position.
Simply one among many examples: We helped launch the Human Artistry Marketing campaign and articulate its rules. This world initiative was shaped in 2023 to guard creators’ rights within the age of AI and now has greater than 170 supporting organizations from over 40 international locations.
We’re backing many such trade and artistic group initiatives you see referenced right here.
On the enterprise improvement entrance, Common is forging the way forward for AI Music with main innovators.
To spotlight only a few of our energetic partnerships…
• Soundlabs, Hooky and Supertone are every using “voice clone” AI expertise enabling artists to carry out in a number of languages so their audiences can hear them singing within the followers’ native tongues for the primary time.
• KLAY Imaginative and prescient is growing thrilling new fashions leveraging Generative AI for hyper personalization and deeper fan engagement.
• ProRata is making necessary output attribution developments to allow new Gen AI enterprise fashions.
Let’s have a look at some exemplary artist initiatives.
We had been thrilled to launch “Now And Then,” the final track from The Beatles – written and sung by John Lennon virtually 50 years in the past. Utilizing subsequent era AI supply separation expertise, Lennon’s voice was excavated from a cassette recording that had been utterly unusable for many years, ready for this second within the evolution of AI to reach.
In February of this 12 months, “Now and Then” received the Grammy for “Greatest Rock Efficiency,” the primary time any recording using AI expertise has been so honored in a significant class.
We not too long ago joined forces with Apple to introduce a brand new class referred to as “Sound Remedy” powered by a crew of scientists, engineers and producers at Sollos, Common’s music well being division.
This audio wellness innovation employs our personal ethically developed, patented Gen AI system. It seamlessly integrates scientifically calibrated audio dietary supplements into the recordings of a few of our greatest artists together with Think about Dragons, Katy Perry and Kacey Musgraves.
The consequence? Immersive artist-approved remixes that ship a spread of wellness advantages to subscribers.
For the primary time in my profession, I believe I can truthfully say: I hope my presentation has put you to sleep…
Lastly, I’m happy to spotlight a brand new music video undertaking from world famous person Keith City…the very commission sales instance of how our artists are harnessing their world-class creativity to have interaction with cutting-edge expertise and map the way forward for AI Music.
This mesmerizing therapy of Keith’s hit “Straight Traces” is being created with Moon Valley Gen AI and different ethically skilled instruments. This brief explanatory video particulars the manufacturing course of.
Now, a sneak preview clip from the almost accomplished forthcoming Keith City music video, “Straight Traces.”
So, in abstract…
We imagine that music is common…that AI might be instrumental to our future…and that it’s the artists who will proceed to form world tradition, channeling disruption into transformation as they’ve all the time performed.
In our artist-centric imaginative and prescient, AI innovation can drive music tradition, and in so doing, generate even better advantages to the standard of life on this planet.
Thanks.