Field Dispatch
Kehlani vs. Xania Monet | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: Actually, Jenny found a couple of interesting, uh music industry stories.
Speaker 1: But this is from Billboard dot com. This this just happened.
Speaker 1: And this also relates to a subject that we've discussed
Speaker 1: many times on the show. Kalan Kilanie slams AI artist
Speaker 1: Zania or Zania Monet. It's x A N I A.
Speaker 1: So I guess that's Zania Zannia Monet getting a three
Speaker 1: million dollar record deal. Uh, this is so beyond out
Speaker 1: of control, the musician told fans. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about this. This is the first time hearing about this.
Speaker 1: This is I didn't think there even was such a
Speaker 1: thing as a three million dollar record deal anymore.
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: I thought that was a thing of the past. But
Speaker 1: so I don't understand. Let's we'll go through this here again.
Speaker 1: This is from Billboard dot Com. A few days ago,
Speaker 1: Billboard broke the news that an AI generated artist, Zannia Monet,
Speaker 1: had signed a multimillion dollar record deal after meeting with
Speaker 1: multiple labels.
Speaker 2: This sounds very we bought over this person. It sounds like, yeah,
Speaker 2: but not person. It's not a person.
Speaker 1: And by the way, but even that, that's one thing
Speaker 1: about this is so strange. But The other thing that's
Speaker 1: so strange to me is a story about a new
Speaker 1: artist having multiple meetings with various labels to and this
Speaker 1: bidding war that that that sounds like something from thirty
Speaker 1: years ago. That doesn't sound like something that even happens
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. So that part's also strange to me.
Speaker 1: Everything about this is weird. Are we in an alternate universe?
Speaker 2: An artist, I use that term loosely, who did all
Speaker 2: of their music with Sunio?
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is the app that we use? Suno, which
Speaker 1: is the app that we use?
Speaker 2: Yeahah, sorry, I don't know why I said it, though
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Why because the other, the other big one is Udio.
Speaker 1: So I think in your mind you created an amalgam
Speaker 1: of Suno and Udio and created Sudio.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean maybe maybe someday they'll merge and that'll be
Speaker 1: the new name.
Speaker 2: The creator is claiming the art the lyrics are theirs, Yeah,
Speaker 2: but they use Suno to make the music. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: the music is obviously not theirs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it says here. In a recent TikTok, the singer
Speaker 1: songwriter Kilani shared their thoughts on how Wold Media reportedly
Speaker 1: shelling out three million dollars to sign the fictive musician
Speaker 1: whose quote persona is operated behind the scenes by writer
Speaker 1: Talisha Nicki Jones, despite copyright concerns previously voiced by other
Speaker 1: major labels um So, a frustrated sounding Kilani told followers,
Speaker 1: without directly mentioning Monet or Jones, quote, there is an AI,
Speaker 1: R and B artist who just signed a multimillion dollar
Speaker 1: deal and the person is doing none of the work.
Speaker 1: This is so beyond out of control. Unquote.
Speaker 2: It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. They're using
Speaker 2: other people's music to create it. Suno uses everybody else's
Speaker 2: music to learn from. So if you're going there with
Speaker 2: your lyrics to quote make music, you're making music from
Speaker 2: other artists. Really, it's not coming out of your brain,
Speaker 2: but artistry comes out of your brain.
Speaker 1: But I also don't understand the most but the most
Speaker 1: mind bending thing to me about this is again I
Speaker 1: don't know, like, why is somebody paying three million dollars
Speaker 1: for this?
Speaker 2: Because apparently these songs are going up the jar?
Speaker 1: But so what even even if they are, you don't
Speaker 1: pay In the year twenty twenty five, why would anyone
Speaker 1: pay three million dollars to anybody for anything.
Speaker 2: Apparently this was a big deal. They had this big,
Speaker 2: giant zoom meeting with the executive and this is bizarre
Speaker 2: to close this deal with the person what was I
Speaker 2: I can't remember that person's name is who created zanium Moone,
Speaker 2: who is not a human being?
Speaker 1: But what am I missing about? I mean, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and I know the AI part is so shird,
Speaker 1: but I'm still stuck on the other part of this. Like, honestly,
Speaker 1: if you took this story and you took the AI
Speaker 1: part out of it, and you just told me there
Speaker 1: was this new artist named Zaniamone who had all these
Speaker 1: meetings and just got offered a three million dollar record deal,
Speaker 1: a brand new artists, brand new artist, I've never even
Speaker 1: heard of it. Even if you took the AI part
Speaker 1: completely out of the story, I would still be sitting
Speaker 1: here going what in the year twenty twenty five?
Speaker 2: They're charting, That's why their chart.
Speaker 1: But even that shouldn't matter what greed talks buck up
Speaker 1: like this.
Speaker 2: They don't care. They can make a dollar, they'll do it.
Speaker 1: But how are they gonna make money?
Speaker 2: Like they're gonna make merch? Maybe?
Speaker 1: I guess where do they make money?
Speaker 2: These days. It's downloads aren't the way.
Speaker 1: Nobody gets a three million dollar deal in twenty five.
Speaker 2: So what is in the deal, though, Like, what exactly
Speaker 2: is in the deal? Obviously, this artist can't go perform anywhere.
Speaker 2: There's no concerts for fictictional character unless they make a hologram.
Speaker 1: Well unless the author who created this character is going
Speaker 1: to do to do that.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were gonna do that when
Speaker 2: they do that themselves to begin with, I'm assuming that
Speaker 2: they can't perform the way that their fake version can
Speaker 2: co performed. I guess yeah, on a computer. It can't
Speaker 2: perform outside of a computer. You can't go to get
Speaker 2: tickets and go see them live unless it's a holograph.
Speaker 2: I don't think we Well we got those in Vegas,
Speaker 2: but they're not everywhere yet.
Speaker 1: Well you can, though, I mean if if if if
Speaker 1: she can sing and she's you know, she can sing,
Speaker 1: if I just hire if you can hire a band
Speaker 1: to learn the songs, or you just play back in
Speaker 1: tracks or whatever.
Speaker 2: I mean, But that's not what they're saying. But that's
Speaker 2: not what they didn't sign her. They signed the fictitional character. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's got to be like merch and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's like, that's a lot of money for.
Speaker 2: I don't like that. I'm really I actually am kind
Speaker 2: of shocked by it all because I didn't think that
Speaker 2: the music industry will legitimize it in this way, and
Speaker 2: now that they have, I don't like it.
Speaker 1: I don't like it.
Speaker 2: I don't like it.
Speaker 1: Assily with the vocalist, Kilanie went on emphasize the power
Speaker 1: of AI to create fully formed songs out of finish
Speaker 1: without users having to credit anyone involved in making the
Speaker 1: countless copyrighted works on which such generative music systems are
Speaker 1: trained to craft. Monet's music, Jones used Souno, which is
Speaker 1: the same app that we we full disclosure, we played
Speaker 1: with we we've played with it on the air, we
Speaker 1: did experiments, we we created tracks about me becoming victorious
Speaker 1: in my my long running feud with MC hammer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not saying it's not fun to play with,
Speaker 2: but to reward it, to pay for it, to legitimize
Speaker 2: it in the music industry as a valid I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've also there to real flesh of blood humans.
Speaker 1: I've also used it, full disclosure, I've used it to
Speaker 1: create theme music for a couple of podcasts, Uh, Tough
Speaker 1: Bumps and Uh. And I even made a song for
Speaker 1: the The AF the podcast only version of this show,
Speaker 1: although I'm not really I kind of changed my mind
Speaker 1: about the song I chose but that I created with Suno.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it doesn't matter. But okay, So to craft
Speaker 1: Mone's music, Jones used Suno, though her manager Rommel Murphy
Speaker 1: emphasized to Billboard that his client personally writes all the
Speaker 1: original lyrics that Monet quote unquote sings, but.
Speaker 2: Not the music. And I argue that it's not without
Speaker 2: copyright infringement because every piece of music this thing used
Speaker 2: to create it, it learned from a human being. It
Speaker 2: didn't come out of thin air. It came out of
Speaker 2: a human mind that it stuck into a computer and
Speaker 2: spit this out right. So is that really not using
Speaker 2: somebody else's work, because I don't think it is. You're
Speaker 2: using everybody else's work to train it, and then it
Speaker 2: pulls from a thousand artists to make the song. Well,
Speaker 2: that's a thousand different artists' input that got into that song.
Speaker 2: It's not royalty free, y'all? Happy? Gee? Look at like
Speaker 2: I don't like the way the article comes across, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is no that section you read about it being
Speaker 2: like royalty free and they can create that.
Speaker 1: Just I don't like it, it says here.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Billboard has reached out to Jones's rep for comment. Uh
Speaker 1: Kilani certainly isn't the only person in the industry with
Speaker 1: objections to Monet's deal. Sources previously told Billboard that several
Speaker 1: major labels had also been in talks with Jones, but
Speaker 1: ultimately walked away with respect to their collaborative copyright lawsuit
Speaker 1: against Suno last year. Yeah, there's a there's a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: The labels are suing Suno.
Speaker 2: That's right, So why are somebody signing this person.
Speaker 1: Well, the company signing them isn't involved in that lawsuit obviously.
Speaker 1: But but that's why I tell people too, because you know,
Speaker 1: we we use Suno. I use Suno for some stuff.
Speaker 1: If you are using these uh these these uh large
Speaker 1: learning models, like you know, enjoy it while you have it,
Speaker 1: because the sharks are circling just so you know. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's gonna be I think that.
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think it's gonna go done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh I agree, But yeah, the basis of the lawsuit
Speaker 1: is that Sono allegedly infringed upon the copyright of the
Speaker 1: label's catalogs by using pre existing works to train its technology.
Speaker 1: The company disagrees with this characterization, arguing that its users
Speaker 1: are actually making entirely original works via fair use of
Speaker 1: the music in its database.
Speaker 2: Okay, but that's saying the same thing in a different sentence.
Speaker 2: You just said this fair use is a very loosely
Speaker 2: used term in that sentence, I think, I think, well, that's.
Speaker 1: But well, that's the argument that the company, the signed
Speaker 1: er is making now there and and so for people
Speaker 1: who don't know, so, fair use is when you're using
Speaker 1: someone else's material, but but but you're using it in
Speaker 1: a transformative way or educational way. So for example, if
Speaker 1: if you if you watch YouTube videos, you know, because
Speaker 1: people make reaction videos, especially you know in political YouTube.
Speaker 1: So for example, if you're commenting on something on somebody
Speaker 1: else's video, you're using someone else's content and you're playing
Speaker 1: it and you're commenting on it as you do it.
Speaker 1: We had even recently discussed doing that with someone, but
Speaker 1: we decided not to because we don't want someone making
Speaker 1: angry phone calls to certain people. But that type of
Speaker 1: thing where you're using somebody else's content but you're commenting
Speaker 1: on it as you play it on your own channel,
Speaker 1: that's an example of fair use. The reason podcasters on
Speaker 1: YouTube are able to do that kind of thing is
Speaker 1: because it's transformative. They're taking they're using someone else's content
Speaker 1: to create their own content from that as they comment
Speaker 1: on it. And that's why those podcasters are protected.
Speaker 2: Huge difference because the material they're using, they're using it,
Speaker 2: it's still associated, it's still identified as the original. You're
Speaker 2: playing it, but it's the original. You know what's the
Speaker 2: person speaking? Is that person not them? They're not taking
Speaker 2: all of that and creating something. It's it's not that
Speaker 2: you know, this is literally this is like I read
Speaker 2: every VC Andrews book and then I write a VC
Speaker 2: Andrews book because I read all of her books and
Speaker 2: just gurgitated out her own style wording continued her story.
Speaker 2: Isn't that still her story? It's still her story. I'm
Speaker 2: I'm playing in her world. It's not like it's one
Speaker 2: thing together.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you took the characters and made exact basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be then you'd be violating her intellectual property.
Speaker 2: Well, how are you not violating a musician's intellectual property
Speaker 2: when you're stealing the notes off of a page instead
Speaker 2: of the words off of a page.
Speaker 1: Now that just to play a devil's advocate, you know
Speaker 1: my counter argument, and you've heard me say this before,
Speaker 1: and by the way, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I will always argue on behalf of artists. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: got to talk about and protecting artists, and you know
Speaker 1: obviously where I come from. I think everyone understands that.
Speaker 1: But the the counter argument, and I do think it's
Speaker 1: a decent counter argument. So again I'm playing devil's advocate.
Speaker 1: But when we talk about these large learning models sucking
Speaker 1: up all this information and then and then being able
Speaker 1: to create from it, if I how is that different
Speaker 1: from necessarily the human brain. So if I sit down
Speaker 1: and I write a song, anybody wait let me, Well,
Speaker 1: let me just finish my thought. Though again I'm playing
Speaker 1: devil's advocate here, but let me just finish my thought.
Speaker 1: If I'm sitting down and I'm writing something, anything that
Speaker 1: I write is informed and influenced by all the music
Speaker 1: that I've previously heard in my lifetime up to that moment.
Speaker 1: So therefore, how is that different.
Speaker 2: Because you are a human being using your mind, not
Speaker 2: a computer that can memorize everything verbatim everything at your stamp,
Speaker 2: every note, every everything, every dissonance and replicate that percisely.
Speaker 2: You are human. You cannot do that. You as a
Speaker 2: human can interpret what you hear, what you see, what
Speaker 2: you feel, and then reinterpret that into artistry. That's what
Speaker 2: artists do, right. You take a story, something that's pointed
Speaker 2: to you, You take a paint brush and you scart
Speaker 2: that around. That is you interpreting the world around you
Speaker 2: into that canvas, right, same thing a musician does, interpreting
Speaker 2: the world and putting it down on a sheet music.
Speaker 2: That's unique.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: You taking all the knowledge that somebody gives you, go
Speaker 2: to college for ten years, you take all that knowledge
Speaker 2: to write something that's you, as a human being, creating
Speaker 2: something out of your own mind. It's not picture perfect
Speaker 2: pages in a computer that can literally just that's not creation.
Speaker 2: That's gluing stuff together just very quick in my mind's eye.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, just very quickly. I'm looking on YouTube. I
Speaker 1: just want to hear something from.
Speaker 2: I Will Live.
Speaker 1: I hear like what what could somebody possibly be paying?
Speaker 1: See I'm still suck on that part. Could somebody be
Speaker 1: paying three million dollars for? Okay?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: Uh, what's the going rate for artists these days?
Speaker 1: So it's not that, let's see Okay, Okay, So I
Speaker 1: found the YouTube page Xanny moon A. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna play this first song that pops up. Looks
Speaker 1: like this is the newest single. It's called back when
Speaker 1: Love was Real?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: This is the lyric video here. Let me it's probably
Speaker 1: an ad first, let me see. I'm just curious, like,
Speaker 1: what what could this be?
Speaker 3: M I want that back in the day kind of
Speaker 3: back loving live stream. It was filled inside, no text,
Speaker 3: no mardnightest, just loyalty and a little bit of respect
Speaker 3: before everybody new yor.
Speaker 4: Before who you with turns suspicious, before the GPS and
Speaker 4: the past words to simple just me you segment back
Speaker 4: it was real.
Speaker 1: I almost feel like she's trolling all of us with
Speaker 1: those lyrics.
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound any different from stuff you've created, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't think it does.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I don't get a few words in there,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't get it like this this So.
Speaker 2: Many people Okay, I'm not okay with this.
Speaker 1: You know this is wrong.
Speaker 2: It's a huge difference between human creation and computer creation. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: humans don't have the ability to photo have a photographic
Speaker 2: memory of every single word note you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: every breath of the in a nation. Where's there's so
Speaker 2: much to what an artist does as a human.
Speaker 1: Although that does well, that raises a question though, what
Speaker 1: if what if an artist has a photographic memory? Should
Speaker 1: they but you're not gonna should they not make me?
Speaker 1: That's different attraphic memories. That's you're a human. But you're
Speaker 1: a human.
Speaker 2: You're still using everything that you've got to create something
Speaker 2: out of your own brain. It's not like a computer
Speaker 2: literally taking ones and zeros and realigning the ones and
Speaker 2: zeros and spitting it back at you, which is what
Speaker 2: I feel like it's doing. You're taking everybody else's music,
Speaker 2: is your ones and zeros, rearrange it, spit it back out.
Speaker 2: That's not what a human being does. A human being
Speaker 2: takes life, experience, thought, feeling, passion, emotion, all of that,
Speaker 2: everything they've learned, they've been around, musicians, whatever, and then
Speaker 2: create out of that.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: Big difference between rearranging it and creation.
Speaker 1: Justin Michaels is in the chat room. You know, he's
Speaker 1: a very loyal listener and supporter of actually all the
Speaker 1: programming that we're involved in. And he says, so you
Speaker 1: can you can use AI and get signed. Now, wow, that's.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying. Right, we just found this out.
Speaker 1: And he said, Matt, look out for Skynett.
Speaker 2: I think we've already gotten there at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it is it isn't right, it's not okay with me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And you're never going to see this artist for in
Speaker 2: real life ever, they're not existent. You could see somebody
Speaker 2: pretending to be them, but you will never see them
Speaker 2: because they don't exist. They only exist in a computer
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