Kehlani vs. Xania Monet | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Actually, Jenny found a couple of interesting, uh music industry stories.

0:03 Speaker 1: But this is from Billboard dot com. This this just happened.

0:08 Speaker 1: And this also relates to a subject that we've discussed

0:10 Speaker 1: many times on the show. Kalan Kilanie slams AI artist

0:16 Speaker 1: Zania or Zania Monet. It's x A N I A.

0:20 Speaker 1: So I guess that's Zania Zannia Monet getting a three

0:25 Speaker 1: million dollar record deal. Uh, this is so beyond out

0:29 Speaker 1: of control, the musician told fans. Now, I don't know

0:31 Speaker 1: 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

0:35 Speaker 1: 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

0:41 Speaker 1: so I don't understand. Let's we'll go through this here again.

0:44 Speaker 1: This is from Billboard dot Com. A few days ago,

0:46 Speaker 1: Billboard broke the news that an AI generated artist, Zannia Monet,

0:52 Speaker 1: had signed a multimillion dollar record deal after meeting with

0:56 Speaker 1: multiple labels.

0:58 Speaker 2: This sounds very we bought over this person. It sounds like, yeah,

1:02 Speaker 2: but not person. It's not a person.

1:04 Speaker 1: And by the way, but even that, that's one thing

1:08 Speaker 1: about this is so strange. But The other thing that's

1:10 Speaker 1: so strange to me is a story about a new

1:12 Speaker 1: artist having multiple meetings with various labels to and this

1:16 Speaker 1: bidding war that that that sounds like something from thirty

1:19 Speaker 1: years ago. That doesn't sound like something that even happens

1:22 Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. So that part's also strange to me.

1:26 Speaker 1: 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

1:32 Speaker 2: of their music with Sunio?

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

1:36 Speaker 1: is the app that we use?

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

1:39 Speaker 2: I know.

1:40 Speaker 1: Why because the other, the other big one is Udio.

1:42 Speaker 1: So I think in your mind you created an amalgam

1:45 Speaker 1: 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

1:50 Speaker 1: the new name.

1:51 Speaker 2: The creator is claiming the art the lyrics are theirs, Yeah,

1:55 Speaker 2: but they use Suno to make the music. Yeah, so

1:58 Speaker 2: the music is obviously not theirs.

2:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, it says here. In a recent TikTok, the singer

2:04 Speaker 1: songwriter Kilani shared their thoughts on how Wold Media reportedly

2:09 Speaker 1: shelling out three million dollars to sign the fictive musician

2:14 Speaker 1: whose quote persona is operated behind the scenes by writer

2:18 Speaker 1: Talisha Nicki Jones, despite copyright concerns previously voiced by other

2:24 Speaker 1: major labels um So, a frustrated sounding Kilani told followers,

2:31 Speaker 1: without directly mentioning Monet or Jones, quote, there is an AI,

2:36 Speaker 1: R and B artist who just signed a multimillion dollar

2:39 Speaker 1: 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

2:48 Speaker 2: other people's music to create it. Suno uses everybody else's

2:52 Speaker 2: music to learn from. So if you're going there with

2:55 Speaker 2: your lyrics to quote make music, you're making music from

2:59 Speaker 2: other artists. Really, it's not coming out of your brain,

3:03 Speaker 2: but artistry comes out of your brain.

3:05 Speaker 1: But I also don't understand the most but the most

3:09 Speaker 1: mind bending thing to me about this is again I

3:11 Speaker 1: don't know, like, why is somebody paying three million dollars

3:13 Speaker 1: 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

3:19 Speaker 1: pay In the year twenty twenty five, why would anyone

3:21 Speaker 1: pay three million dollars to anybody for anything.

3:25 Speaker 2: Apparently this was a big deal. They had this big,

3:27 Speaker 2: giant zoom meeting with the executive and this is bizarre

3:31 Speaker 2: to close this deal with the person what was I

3:36 Speaker 2: I can't remember that person's name is who created zanium Moone,

3:41 Speaker 2: who is not a human being?

3:43 Speaker 1: But what am I missing about? I mean, like, yeah,

3:45 Speaker 1: I mean, and I know the AI part is so shird,

3:50 Speaker 1: but I'm still stuck on the other part of this. Like, honestly,

3:52 Speaker 1: if you took this story and you took the AI

3:55 Speaker 1: part out of it, and you just told me there

3:57 Speaker 1: was this new artist named Zaniamone who had all these

4:02 Speaker 1: meetings and just got offered a three million dollar record deal,

4:04 Speaker 1: a brand new artists, brand new artist, I've never even

4:06 Speaker 1: heard of it. Even if you took the AI part

4:08 Speaker 1: completely out of the story, I would still be sitting

4:10 Speaker 1: 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

4:20 Speaker 1: 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

4:39 Speaker 2: is in the deal? Obviously, this artist can't go perform anywhere.

4:43 Speaker 2: 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

4:50 Speaker 1: to do to do that.

4:51 Speaker 2: I don't know if they were gonna do that when

4:52 Speaker 2: they do that themselves to begin with, I'm assuming that

4:56 Speaker 2: they can't perform the way that their fake version can

4:59 Speaker 2: co performed. I guess yeah, on a computer. It can't

5:03 Speaker 2: perform outside of a computer. You can't go to get

5:06 Speaker 2: tickets and go see them live unless it's a holograph.

5:10 Speaker 2: I don't think we Well we got those in Vegas,

5:12 Speaker 2: but they're not everywhere yet.

5:13 Speaker 1: Well you can, though, I mean if if if if

5:15 Speaker 1: she can sing and she's you know, she can sing,

5:19 Speaker 1: if I just hire if you can hire a band

5:21 Speaker 1: to learn the songs, or you just play back in

5:23 Speaker 1: tracks or whatever.

5:23 Speaker 2: I mean, But that's not what they're saying. But that's

5:25 Speaker 2: not what they didn't sign her. They signed the fictitional character. Yeah,

5:31 Speaker 2: 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

5:40 Speaker 2: of shocked by it all because I didn't think that

5:43 Speaker 2: the music industry will legitimize it in this way, and

5:48 Speaker 2: 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

5:57 Speaker 1: of AI to create fully formed songs out of finish

6:00 Speaker 1: without users having to credit anyone involved in making the

6:03 Speaker 1: countless copyrighted works on which such generative music systems are

6:07 Speaker 1: trained to craft. Monet's music, Jones used Souno, which is

6:11 Speaker 1: the same app that we we full disclosure, we played

6:15 Speaker 1: with we we've played with it on the air, we

6:17 Speaker 1: did experiments, we we created tracks about me becoming victorious

6:22 Speaker 1: 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,

6:28 Speaker 2: but to reward it, to pay for it, to legitimize

6:33 Speaker 2: it in the music industry as a valid I don't know.

6:40 Speaker 2: 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

6:46 Speaker 1: create theme music for a couple of podcasts, Uh, Tough

6:50 Speaker 1: Bumps and Uh. And I even made a song for

6:54 Speaker 1: the The AF the podcast only version of this show,

6:57 Speaker 1: although I'm not really I kind of changed my mind

7:00 Speaker 1: about the song I chose but that I created with Suno.

7:03 Speaker 1: But anyway, it doesn't matter. But okay, So to craft

7:07 Speaker 1: Mone's music, Jones used Suno, though her manager Rommel Murphy

7:11 Speaker 1: emphasized to Billboard that his client personally writes all the

7:15 Speaker 1: original lyrics that Monet quote unquote sings, but.

7:19 Speaker 2: Not the music. And I argue that it's not without

7:23 Speaker 2: copyright infringement because every piece of music this thing used

7:29 Speaker 2: to create it, it learned from a human being. It

7:32 Speaker 2: didn't come out of thin air. It came out of

7:34 Speaker 2: a human mind that it stuck into a computer and

7:37 Speaker 2: spit this out right. So is that really not using

7:40 Speaker 2: somebody else's work, because I don't think it is. You're

7:43 Speaker 2: using everybody else's work to train it, and then it

7:46 Speaker 2: pulls from a thousand artists to make the song. Well,

7:50 Speaker 2: 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

7:58 Speaker 2: I don't like the way the article comes across, it's like, oh,

8:01 Speaker 2: this is no that section you read about it being

8:04 Speaker 2: 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

8:17 Speaker 1: Kilani certainly isn't the only person in the industry with

8:19 Speaker 1: objections to Monet's deal. Sources previously told Billboard that several

8:24 Speaker 1: major labels had also been in talks with Jones, but

8:29 Speaker 1: ultimately walked away with respect to their collaborative copyright lawsuit

8:33 Speaker 1: against Suno last year. Yeah, there's a there's a lawsuit.

8:37 Speaker 1: 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.

8:46 Speaker 1: But but that's why I tell people too, because you know,

8:51 Speaker 1: we we use Suno. I use Suno for some stuff.

8:54 Speaker 1: If you are using these uh these these uh large

8:59 Speaker 1: learning models, like you know, enjoy it while you have it,

9:03 Speaker 1: because the sharks are circling just so you know. Okay,

9:07 Speaker 1: 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,

9:12 Speaker 1: oh I agree, But yeah, the basis of the lawsuit

9:16 Speaker 1: is that Sono allegedly infringed upon the copyright of the

9:19 Speaker 1: label's catalogs by using pre existing works to train its technology.

9:23 Speaker 1: The company disagrees with this characterization, arguing that its users

9:27 Speaker 1: are actually making entirely original works via fair use of

9:30 Speaker 1: the music in its database.

9:32 Speaker 2: Okay, but that's saying the same thing in a different sentence.

9:35 Speaker 2: You just said this fair use is a very loosely

9:39 Speaker 2: 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

9:44 Speaker 1: er is making now there and and so for people

9:48 Speaker 1: who don't know, so, fair use is when you're using

9:50 Speaker 1: someone else's material, but but but you're using it in

9:54 Speaker 1: a transformative way or educational way. So for example, if

9:59 Speaker 1: if you if you watch YouTube videos, you know, because

10:02 Speaker 1: people make reaction videos, especially you know in political YouTube.

10:09 Speaker 1: So for example, if you're commenting on something on somebody

10:12 Speaker 1: else's video, you're using someone else's content and you're playing

10:16 Speaker 1: 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

10:21 Speaker 1: we decided not to because we don't want someone making

10:24 Speaker 1: angry phone calls to certain people. But that type of

10:27 Speaker 1: thing where you're using somebody else's content but you're commenting

10:30 Speaker 1: on it as you play it on your own channel,

10:32 Speaker 1: that's an example of fair use. The reason podcasters on

10:35 Speaker 1: YouTube are able to do that kind of thing is

10:37 Speaker 1: because it's transformative. They're taking they're using someone else's content

10:41 Speaker 1: to create their own content from that as they comment

10:44 Speaker 1: on it. And that's why those podcasters are protected.

10:47 Speaker 2: Huge difference because the material they're using, they're using it,

10:52 Speaker 2: it's still associated, it's still identified as the original. You're

10:56 Speaker 2: playing it, but it's the original. You know what's the

10:58 Speaker 2: person speaking? Is that person not them? They're not taking

11:03 Speaker 2: all of that and creating something. It's it's not that

11:08 Speaker 2: you know, this is literally this is like I read

11:12 Speaker 2: every VC Andrews book and then I write a VC

11:15 Speaker 2: Andrews book because I read all of her books and

11:18 Speaker 2: 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

11:27 Speaker 2: I'm playing in her world. It's not like it's one

11:31 Speaker 2: thing together.

11:33 Speaker 1: I mean, if you took the characters and made exact basically, yeah,

11:37 Speaker 1: 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

11:44 Speaker 2: when you're stealing the notes off of a page instead

11:46 Speaker 2: of the words off of a page.

11:49 Speaker 1: Now that just to play a devil's advocate, you know

11:52 Speaker 1: my counter argument, and you've heard me say this before,

11:54 Speaker 1: and by the way, at the end of the day,

11:56 Speaker 1: I will always argue on behalf of artists. Yeah, we

11:58 Speaker 1: got to talk about and protecting artists, and you know

12:01 Speaker 1: obviously where I come from. I think everyone understands that.

12:03 Speaker 1: But the the counter argument, and I do think it's

12:07 Speaker 1: a decent counter argument. So again I'm playing devil's advocate.

12:09 Speaker 1: But when we talk about these large learning models sucking

12:13 Speaker 1: up all this information and then and then being able

12:16 Speaker 1: to create from it, if I how is that different

12:20 Speaker 1: from necessarily the human brain. So if I sit down

12:25 Speaker 1: and I write a song, anybody wait let me, Well,

12:29 Speaker 1: let me just finish my thought. Though again I'm playing

12:31 Speaker 1: devil's advocate here, but let me just finish my thought.

12:33 Speaker 1: If I'm sitting down and I'm writing something, anything that

12:37 Speaker 1: I write is informed and influenced by all the music

12:41 Speaker 1: that I've previously heard in my lifetime up to that moment.

12:45 Speaker 1: So therefore, how is that different.

12:48 Speaker 2: Because you are a human being using your mind, not

12:50 Speaker 2: a computer that can memorize everything verbatim everything at your stamp,

12:55 Speaker 2: every note, every everything, every dissonance and replicate that percisely.

13:00 Speaker 2: You are human. You cannot do that. You as a

13:03 Speaker 2: human can interpret what you hear, what you see, what

13:05 Speaker 2: you feel, and then reinterpret that into artistry. That's what

13:09 Speaker 2: artists do, right. You take a story, something that's pointed

13:12 Speaker 2: to you, You take a paint brush and you scart

13:14 Speaker 2: that around. That is you interpreting the world around you

13:17 Speaker 2: into that canvas, right, same thing a musician does, interpreting

13:20 Speaker 2: 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

13:27 Speaker 2: to college for ten years, you take all that knowledge

13:29 Speaker 2: to write something that's you, as a human being, creating

13:33 Speaker 2: something out of your own mind. It's not picture perfect

13:38 Speaker 2: pages in a computer that can literally just that's not creation.

13:43 Speaker 2: 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

13:51 Speaker 1: 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?

13:58 Speaker 1: See I'm still suck on that part. Could somebody be

14:00 Speaker 1: 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

14:13 Speaker 1: found the YouTube page Xanny moon A. All right, I'm

14:16 Speaker 1: just gonna play this first song that pops up. Looks

14:18 Speaker 1: like this is the newest single. It's called back when

14:21 Speaker 1: Love was Real?

14:22 Speaker 2: All right?

14:23 Speaker 1: This is the lyric video here. Let me it's probably

14:25 Speaker 1: an ad first, let me see. I'm just curious, like,

14:28 Speaker 1: what what could this be?

14:34 Speaker 3: M I want that back in the day kind of

14:46 Speaker 3: back loving live stream. It was filled inside, no text,

14:52 Speaker 3: no mardnightest, just loyalty and a little bit of respect

14:57 Speaker 3: before everybody new yor.

15:01 Speaker 4: Before who you with turns suspicious, before the GPS and

15:06 Speaker 4: the past words to simple just me you segment back

15:14 Speaker 4: it was real.

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

15:18 Speaker 1: those lyrics.

15:18 Speaker 2: It doesn't sound any different from stuff you've created, you know,

15:21 Speaker 2: I don't think it does.

15:23 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I don't get a few words in there,

15:26 Speaker 1: 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,

15:39 Speaker 2: humans don't have the ability to photo have a photographic

15:42 Speaker 2: memory of every single word note you know what I mean,

15:47 Speaker 2: every breath of the in a nation. Where's there's so

15:50 Speaker 2: much to what an artist does as a human.

15:53 Speaker 1: Although that does well, that raises a question though, what

15:55 Speaker 1: if what if an artist has a photographic memory? Should

15:57 Speaker 1: they but you're not gonna should they not make me?

16:00 Speaker 1: That's different attraphic memories. That's you're a human. But you're

16:07 Speaker 1: a human.

16:08 Speaker 2: You're still using everything that you've got to create something

16:12 Speaker 2: out of your own brain. It's not like a computer

16:16 Speaker 2: literally taking ones and zeros and realigning the ones and

16:19 Speaker 2: zeros and spitting it back at you, which is what

16:21 Speaker 2: I feel like it's doing. You're taking everybody else's music,

16:25 Speaker 2: is your ones and zeros, rearrange it, spit it back out.

16:29 Speaker 2: That's not what a human being does. A human being

16:31 Speaker 2: takes life, experience, thought, feeling, passion, emotion, all of that,

16:36 Speaker 2: everything they've learned, they've been around, musicians, whatever, and then

16:40 Speaker 2: 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

16:48 Speaker 1: a very loyal listener and supporter of actually all the

16:52 Speaker 1: programming that we're involved in. And he says, so you

16:55 Speaker 1: 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,

17:08 Speaker 2: but it is it isn't right, it's not okay with me. Yeah,

17:13 Speaker 2: And you're never going to see this artist for in

17:15 Speaker 2: real life ever, they're not existent. You could see somebody

17:20 Speaker 2: pretending to be them, but you will never see them

17:22 Speaker 2: because they don't exist. They only exist in a computer