Kehlani vs. Xania Monet | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Actually, Jenny found a couple of interesting, uh music industry stories. But this is from Billboard dot com. This this just happened. And this also relates to a subject that we've discussed many times on the show. Kalan Kilanie slams AI artist Zania or Zania Monet. It's x A N I A. So I guess that's Zania Zannia Monet getting a three million dollar record deal. Uh, this is so beyond out of control, the musician told fans. Now, I don't know anything about this. This is the first time hearing about this.

0:33 Speaker 1: This is I didn't think there even was such a thing as a three million dollar record deal anymore.

0:38 Speaker 2: I didn't.

0:39 Speaker 1: I thought that was a thing of the past. But so I don't understand. Let's we'll go through this here again. This is from Billboard dot Com. A few days ago, Billboard broke the news that an AI generated artist, Zannia Monet, had signed a multimillion dollar record deal after meeting with multiple labels.

0:58 Speaker 2: This sounds very we bought over this person. It sounds like, yeah, but not person. It's not a person.

1:04 Speaker 1: And by the way, but even that, that's one thing about this is so strange. But The other thing that's so strange to me is a story about a new artist having multiple meetings with various labels to and this bidding war that that that sounds like something from thirty years ago. That doesn't sound like something that even happens in twenty twenty five. So that part's also strange to me. Everything about this is weird. Are we in an alternate universe?

1:28 Speaker 2: An artist, I use that term loosely, who did all of their music with Sunio?

1:34 Speaker 1: Yeah, which is the app that we use? Suno, which is the app that we use?

1:38 Speaker 2: Yeahah, sorry, I don't know why I said it, though I know.

1:40 Speaker 1: Why because the other, the other big one is Udio. So I think in your mind you created an amalgam of Suno and Udio and created Sudio.

1:47 Speaker 2: Yeah.

1:47 Speaker 1: I mean maybe maybe someday they'll merge and that'll be the new name.

1:51 Speaker 2: The creator is claiming the art the lyrics are theirs, Yeah, but they use Suno to make the music. Yeah, so the music is obviously not theirs.

2:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, it says here. In a recent TikTok, the singer songwriter Kilani shared their thoughts on how Wold Media reportedly shelling out three million dollars to sign the fictive musician whose quote persona is operated behind the scenes by writer Talisha Nicki Jones, despite copyright concerns previously voiced by other major labels um So, a frustrated sounding Kilani told followers, without directly mentioning Monet or Jones, quote, there is an AI, R and B artist who just signed a multimillion dollar deal and the person is doing none of the work.

2:42 Speaker 1: This is so beyond out of control. Unquote.

2:45 Speaker 2: It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. They're using other people's music to create it. Suno uses everybody else's music to learn from. So if you're going there with your lyrics to quote make music, you're making music from other artists. Really, it's not coming out of your brain, but artistry comes out of your brain.

3:05 Speaker 1: But I also don't understand the most but the most mind bending thing to me about this is again I don't know, like, why is somebody paying three million dollars for this?

3:14 Speaker 2: Because apparently these songs are going up the jar?

3:17 Speaker 1: But so what even even if they are, you don't pay In the year twenty twenty five, why would anyone pay three million dollars to anybody for anything.

3:25 Speaker 2: Apparently this was a big deal. They had this big, giant zoom meeting with the executive and this is bizarre to close this deal with the person what was I I can't remember that person's name is who created zanium Moone, who is not a human being?

3:43 Speaker 1: But what am I missing about? I mean, like, yeah, I mean, and I know the AI part is so shird, but I'm still stuck on the other part of this. Like, honestly, if you took this story and you took the AI part out of it, and you just told me there was this new artist named Zaniamone who had all these meetings and just got offered a three million dollar record deal, a brand new artists, brand new artist, I've never even heard of it. Even if you took the AI part completely out of the story, I would still be sitting here going what in the year twenty twenty five?

4:14 Speaker 2: They're charting, That's why their chart.

4:16 Speaker 1: But even that shouldn't matter what greed talks buck up like this.

4:21 Speaker 2: They don't care. They can make a dollar, they'll do it.

4:24 Speaker 1: But how are they gonna make money?

4:25 Speaker 2: Like they're gonna make merch? Maybe?

4:29 Speaker 1: I guess where do they make money?

4:30 Speaker 2: These days. It's downloads aren't the way.

4:33 Speaker 1: Nobody gets a three million dollar deal in twenty five.

4:36 Speaker 2: So what is in the deal, though, Like, what exactly is in the deal? Obviously, this artist can't go perform anywhere. There's no concerts for fictictional character unless they make a hologram.

4:47 Speaker 1: Well unless the author who created this character is going to do to do that.

4:51 Speaker 2: I don't know if they were gonna do that when they do that themselves to begin with, I'm assuming that they can't perform the way that their fake version can co performed. I guess yeah, on a computer. It can't perform outside of a computer. You can't go to get tickets and go see them live unless it's a holograph. I don't think we Well we got those in Vegas, but they're not everywhere yet.

5:13 Speaker 1: Well you can, though, I mean if if if if she can sing and she's you know, she can sing, if I just hire if you can hire a band to learn the songs, or you just play back in tracks or whatever.

5:23 Speaker 2: I mean, But that's not what they're saying. But that's not what they didn't sign her. They signed the fictitional character. Yeah, so it's got to be like merch and stuff like that.

5:34 Speaker 1: Yes, that's like, that's a lot of money for.

5:37 Speaker 2: I don't like that. I'm really I actually am kind of shocked by it all because I didn't think that the music industry will legitimize it in this way, and now that they have, I don't like it.

5:52 Speaker 1: I don't like it.

5:53 Speaker 2: I don't like it.

5:54 Speaker 1: Assily with the vocalist, Kilanie went on emphasize the power of AI to create fully formed songs out of finish without users having to credit anyone involved in making the countless copyrighted works on which such generative music systems are trained to craft. Monet's music, Jones used Souno, which is the same app that we we full disclosure, we played with we we've played with it on the air, we did experiments, we we created tracks about me becoming victorious in my my long running feud with MC hammer.

6:24 Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not saying it's not fun to play with, but to reward it, to pay for it, to legitimize it in the music industry as a valid I don't know. I've also there to real flesh of blood humans.

6:43 Speaker 1: I've also used it, full disclosure, I've used it to create theme music for a couple of podcasts, Uh, Tough Bumps and Uh. And I even made a song for the The AF the podcast only version of this show, although I'm not really I kind of changed my mind about the song I chose but that I created with Suno. But anyway, it doesn't matter. But okay, So to craft Mone's music, Jones used Suno, though her manager Rommel Murphy emphasized to Billboard that his client personally writes all the original lyrics that Monet quote unquote sings, but.

7:19 Speaker 2: Not the music. And I argue that it's not without copyright infringement because every piece of music this thing used to create it, it learned from a human being. It didn't come out of thin air. It came out of a human mind that it stuck into a computer and spit this out right. So is that really not using somebody else's work, because I don't think it is. You're using everybody else's work to train it, and then it pulls from a thousand artists to make the song. Well, that's a thousand different artists' input that got into that song.

7:54 Speaker 2: It's not royalty free, y'all? Happy? Gee? Look at like I don't like the way the article comes across, it's like, oh, this is no that section you read about it being like royalty free and they can create that.

8:09 Speaker 1: Just I don't like it, it says here.

8:13 Speaker 2: Uh.

8:13 Speaker 1: Billboard has reached out to Jones's rep for comment. Uh Kilani certainly isn't the only person in the industry with objections to Monet's deal. Sources previously told Billboard that several major labels had also been in talks with Jones, but ultimately walked away with respect to their collaborative copyright lawsuit against Suno last year. Yeah, there's a there's a lawsuit. The labels are suing Suno.

8:39 Speaker 2: That's right, So why are somebody signing this person.

8:42 Speaker 1: Well, the company signing them isn't involved in that lawsuit obviously. But but that's why I tell people too, because you know, we we use Suno. I use Suno for some stuff. If you are using these uh these these uh large learning models, like you know, enjoy it while you have it, because the sharks are circling just so you know. Okay, I don't know.

9:08 Speaker 2: I don't think it's gonna be I think that.

9:09 Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think it's gonna go done. Yeah, oh I agree, But yeah, the basis of the lawsuit is that Sono allegedly infringed upon the copyright of the label's catalogs by using pre existing works to train its technology. The company disagrees with this characterization, arguing that its users are actually making entirely original works via fair use of the music in its database.

9:32 Speaker 2: Okay, but that's saying the same thing in a different sentence. You just said this fair use is a very loosely used term in that sentence, I think, I think, well, that's.

9:42 Speaker 1: But well, that's the argument that the company, the signed er is making now there and and so for people who don't know, so, fair use is when you're using someone else's material, but but but you're using it in a transformative way or educational way. So for example, if if you if you watch YouTube videos, you know, because people make reaction videos, especially you know in political YouTube. So for example, if you're commenting on something on somebody else's video, you're using someone else's content and you're playing it and you're commenting on it as you do it.

10:18 Speaker 1: We had even recently discussed doing that with someone, but we decided not to because we don't want someone making angry phone calls to certain people. But that type of thing where you're using somebody else's content but you're commenting on it as you play it on your own channel, that's an example of fair use. The reason podcasters on YouTube are able to do that kind of thing is because it's transformative. They're taking they're using someone else's content to create their own content from that as they comment on it.

10:45 Speaker 1: And that's why those podcasters are protected.

10:47 Speaker 2: Huge difference because the material they're using, they're using it, it's still associated, it's still identified as the original. You're playing it, but it's the original. You know what's the person speaking? Is that person not them? They're not taking all of that and creating something. It's it's not that you know, this is literally this is like I read every VC Andrews book and then I write a VC Andrews book because I read all of her books and just gurgitated out her own style wording continued her story.

11:23 Speaker 2: Isn't that still her story? It's still her story. I'm I'm playing in her world. It's not like it's one thing together.

11:33 Speaker 1: I mean, if you took the characters and made exact basically, yeah, that would be then you'd be violating her intellectual property.

11:40 Speaker 2: Well, how are you not violating a musician's intellectual property when you're stealing the notes off of a page instead of the words off of a page.

11:49 Speaker 1: Now that just to play a devil's advocate, you know my counter argument, and you've heard me say this before, and by the way, at the end of the day, I will always argue on behalf of artists. Yeah, we got to talk about and protecting artists, and you know obviously where I come from. I think everyone understands that. But the the counter argument, and I do think it's a decent counter argument. So again I'm playing devil's advocate. But when we talk about these large learning models sucking up all this information and then and then being able to create from it, if I how is that different from necessarily the human brain.

12:24 Speaker 1: So if I sit down and I write a song, anybody wait let me, Well, let me just finish my thought. Though again I'm playing devil's advocate here, but let me just finish my thought. If I'm sitting down and I'm writing something, anything that I write is informed and influenced by all the music that I've previously heard in my lifetime up to that moment. So therefore, how is that different.

12:48 Speaker 2: Because you are a human being using your mind, not a computer that can memorize everything verbatim everything at your stamp, every note, every everything, every dissonance and replicate that percisely. You are human. You cannot do that. You as a human can interpret what you hear, what you see, what you feel, and then reinterpret that into artistry. That's what artists do, right. You take a story, something that's pointed to you, You take a paint brush and you scart that around. That is you interpreting the world around you into that canvas, right, same thing a musician does, interpreting the world and putting it down on a sheet music.

13:23 Speaker 2: That's unique.

13:24 Speaker 1: Yeah.

13:25 Speaker 2: You taking all the knowledge that somebody gives you, go to college for ten years, you take all that knowledge to write something that's you, as a human being, creating something out of your own mind. It's not picture perfect pages in a computer that can literally just that's not creation. That's gluing stuff together just very quick in my mind's eye.

13:48 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, just very quickly. I'm looking on YouTube. I just want to hear something from.

13:54 Speaker 2: I Will Live.

13:55 Speaker 1: I hear like what what could somebody possibly be paying? See I'm still suck on that part. Could somebody be paying three million dollars for? Okay?

14:02 Speaker 3: So?

14:03 Speaker 2: Uh, what's the going rate for artists these days?

14:06 Speaker 1: So it's not that, let's see Okay, Okay, So I found the YouTube page Xanny moon A. All right, I'm just gonna play this first song that pops up. Looks like this is the newest single. It's called back when Love was Real?

14:22 Speaker 2: All right?

14:23 Speaker 1: This is the lyric video here. Let me it's probably an ad first, let me see. I'm just curious, like, what what could this be?

14:34 Speaker 3: M I want that back in the day kind of back loving live stream. It was filled inside, no text, no mardnightest, just loyalty and a little bit of respect before everybody new yor.

15:01 Speaker 4: Before who you with turns suspicious, before the GPS and the past words to simple just me you segment back it was real.

15:16 Speaker 1: I almost feel like she's trolling all of us with those lyrics.

15:18 Speaker 2: It doesn't sound any different from stuff you've created, you know, I don't think it does.

15:23 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I don't get a few words in there, I don't. I don't get it like this this So.

15:29 Speaker 2: Many people Okay, I'm not okay with this.

15:31 Speaker 1: You know this is wrong.

15:34 Speaker 2: It's a huge difference between human creation and computer creation. Wow. Yeah, humans don't have the ability to photo have a photographic memory of every single word note you know what I mean, every breath of the in a nation. Where's there's so much to what an artist does as a human.

15:53 Speaker 1: Although that does well, that raises a question though, what if what if an artist has a photographic memory? Should they but you're not gonna should they not make me? That's different attraphic memories. That's you're a human. But you're a human.

16:08 Speaker 2: You're still using everything that you've got to create something out of your own brain. It's not like a computer literally taking ones and zeros and realigning the ones and zeros and spitting it back at you, which is what I feel like it's doing. You're taking everybody else's music, is your ones and zeros, rearrange it, spit it back out. That's not what a human being does. A human being takes life, experience, thought, feeling, passion, emotion, all of that, everything they've learned, they've been around, musicians, whatever, and then create out of that.

16:41 Speaker 1: Ye.

16:42 Speaker 2: Big difference between rearranging it and creation.

16:46 Speaker 1: Justin Michaels is in the chat room. You know, he's a very loyal listener and supporter of actually all the programming that we're involved in. And he says, so you can you can use AI and get signed. Now, wow, that's.

17:00 Speaker 2: What I'm saying. Right, we just found this out.

17:02 Speaker 1: And he said, Matt, look out for Skynett.

17:05 Speaker 2: I think we've already gotten there at this point. Yeah, but it is it isn't right, it's not okay with me. Yeah, And you're never going to see this artist for in real life ever, they're not existent. You could see somebody pretending to be them, but you will never see them because they don't exist. They only exist in a computer