Say No to SUNO | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I do want to We've got a little bit of

0:02 Speaker 1: music news. This particularly caught my eye, so we have

0:05 Speaker 1: we do have a few minutes before we uh before

0:07 Speaker 1: we hit the top of the hour, So I wanted

0:09 Speaker 1: to talk about this because this well, in a sense

0:14 Speaker 1: it reflects or effects. I should say something that I've used.

0:22 Speaker 1: This is from Music Businessworldwide dot com artist representatives launch

0:28 Speaker 1: say No to Suno campaign Now Suno if you're not familiar,

0:32 Speaker 1: it's an app. It's that uses AI. You can actually

0:36 Speaker 1: create songs using AI. You just put in some simple prompts,

0:42 Speaker 1: tell it what you want, and it will create a

0:43 Speaker 1: song for you. Jenny and I it was over a

0:46 Speaker 1: year ago now, maybe a year and a half ago,

0:48 Speaker 1: the first time we ever used Suno. We did an

0:51 Speaker 1: experiment with it, kind of live on the air, just

0:53 Speaker 1: to see what would happen. It's very easy to use,

0:56 Speaker 1: and it creates some very convincing you know, like you

0:59 Speaker 1: wouldn't know just from listening to what it creates that

1:01 Speaker 1: it's AI generated necessarily. I've used it quite a bit.

1:05 Speaker 1: We've done some really fun things with it. But of

1:10 Speaker 1: course we talk about AI a lot on the show,

1:13 Speaker 1: and it's an effect on the music industry and how

1:15 Speaker 1: artists feel about it, And so now there is this

1:18 Speaker 1: say No to Suno campaign. Now, I have no intentions

1:23 Speaker 1: of involving myself in any way in the campaign because

1:25 Speaker 1: I actually like Suno and it would be hypocritical of

1:27 Speaker 1: me to do so, even though my position ultimately is

1:31 Speaker 1: and I think everyone knows this because of what I do,

1:33 Speaker 1: what I'm involved in, the people I know, et cetera,

1:35 Speaker 1: and the various you know, in terms of careers, the

1:41 Speaker 1: various things I've done, I will always at the end

1:43 Speaker 1: of the day, I will always always advocate on behalf

1:46 Speaker 1: of artists. That's what I care about the most. But

1:49 Speaker 1: that doesn't mean I won't use an AI app like

1:52 Speaker 1: Suno to create a fun, silly song, because I do

1:56 Speaker 1: use it for that quite a bit. So. Artists representatives, though,

1:59 Speaker 1: have launched the say No to Suno campaign, saying AI

2:03 Speaker 1: slop dilutes the royalty pools of legitimate artists from whose

2:08 Speaker 1: music this slop is derived. So let's take a look

2:11 Speaker 1: at this because again, and who knows, who knows? Maybe

2:15 Speaker 1: looking at this article, maybe there's information in here that

2:17 Speaker 1: will change my mind and make me decide to join

2:21 Speaker 1: the say No to Suno campaign. I doubt it, but

2:24 Speaker 1: let's see so it says here again. This is from

2:27 Speaker 1: Music Businessworldwide dot com. A coalition of artist representatives has

2:32 Speaker 1: published an open letter calling on the music community to

2:35 Speaker 1: reject AI music generator Suno. In an open letter titled

2:40 Speaker 1: say No to Suno, the artist reps described the company

2:44 Speaker 1: as a brazen smash and grab platform, accusing it of

2:49 Speaker 1: using unauthorized AI platform machinery trained on human artists. Work

2:54 Speaker 1: published Monday, the twenty third, So this just happened this

2:57 Speaker 1: past week on the Music Technology Policy Blog. The letter

3:03 Speaker 1: was signed by figures including Ray Gubitz, executive director of

3:08 Speaker 1: the Music Artists Coalition, Helene Lindvall, songwriter and president of

3:13 Speaker 1: the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, and Chris Castle of

3:17 Speaker 1: the Artist Rights Institute. Other signatories included artist David C. Lowry,

3:23 Speaker 1: artist and Artist Rights Alliance board member Tift Merritt, Blake Morgan,

3:29 Speaker 1: artist producer and president of VCR Music Group, and Abbey North,

3:31 Speaker 1: president of North Music Group. The letter arrives as Suno

3:36 Speaker 1: continues to face copyright infringement lawsuits from major music companies

3:42 Speaker 1: and rights organizations and by the way. By the way

3:46 Speaker 1: I tell everybody, I say, if you're enjoying these apps

3:50 Speaker 1: like Suno or Udio is another one, a very popular

3:53 Speaker 1: AI music generator. If you enjoy these apps and use

3:56 Speaker 1: these apps, enjoy them while we have them. Because the

3:59 Speaker 1: sharks are circling. Okay, there's all kinds of litigation and

4:04 Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff happening to try to get rid

4:06 Speaker 1: of these apps permanently or well, probably no getting rid

4:10 Speaker 1: of anything permanently, and there's probably no getting rid of

4:12 Speaker 1: these apps period. But I'm just saying, don't be shocked

4:16 Speaker 1: if one day, all of a sudden, you can't use

4:18 Speaker 1: these anymore because they've been shut down. Okay, they've been

4:22 Speaker 1: bankrupted by lawsuits, whatever whatever may happen. But right now,

4:27 Speaker 1: this is what's going on. Okay, so so uh. The

4:32 Speaker 1: RIAA filed suit against both Suno and rival Udo in

4:37 Speaker 1: mid twenty twenty four, acting on behalf of all three majors,

4:41 Speaker 1: alleging mass infringement of copyright. Udio has since reached settlements

4:47 Speaker 1: with both Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, signing

4:51 Speaker 1: licensing agreements with each for a new AI music platform

4:55 Speaker 1: expected to launch this year. Interesting WMG Music Group also

5:00 Speaker 1: settled separately with Suno in November, but the AI company

5:04 Speaker 1: remains locked in legal battles with UMG and Sony Music Entertainment,

5:08 Speaker 1: as well as European music rights holders, including Denmark's CODA

5:13 Speaker 1: and Germany's Gema Gema. I've not used either of those.

5:17 Speaker 1: In fact, I've never used Udio either. The only one

5:19 Speaker 1: I've used as Souno Okay, it says here. The open

5:22 Speaker 1: letter took aim at the broader concept of AI in

5:24 Speaker 1: the music business, arguing that unauthorized generative AI platforms are

5:28 Speaker 1: fundamentally different from previous technological disruptions in the music industry.

5:33 Speaker 1: And by the way, as we've discussed many times on

5:36 Speaker 1: the show, Jenny and I've talked about this, the music

5:38 Speaker 1: industry has had many technological disruptions over the years, you know,

5:44 Speaker 1: transitioning from vinyl and cassettes to CDs, napster. You know,

5:49 Speaker 1: when Napster first came in and file sharing became a thing,

5:52 Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, music was free. I was

5:54 Speaker 1: working for trans World Entertainment at the time, which owned Fye,

6:00 Speaker 1: Which and Strawberries and everything. When I was working for

6:03 Speaker 1: them as a store manager in a music store, and

6:06 Speaker 1: you know, we saw firsthand what was happening. All of

6:08 Speaker 1: a sudden, people aren't buying CDs because they're getting the

6:10 Speaker 1: music for free. And then there was all these debates

6:12 Speaker 1: about while is file sharing stealing or are you just

6:17 Speaker 1: taking advantage of what's available and so forth. We won't

6:20 Speaker 1: get into all of that, but anyway, there's been many

6:23 Speaker 1: That's probably the single biggest technological disruption that's happened in

6:27 Speaker 1: the music industry is the Internet and the ability to

6:30 Speaker 1: access music easily and without paying for it. That's probably

6:35 Speaker 1: the biggest one, at least leading up to the advent

6:38 Speaker 1: of AI. Well, not the advent of it, because AI

6:42 Speaker 1: has been with us for a long time, but now

6:45 Speaker 1: with these apps, the advent of these apps like Pseudo

6:48 Speaker 1: and Udio. Okay, so it says here again, this is

6:51 Speaker 1: from Music Business Worldwide dot com. The open letter took

6:54 Speaker 1: aim Actually, well, I read this already, but this paragraph

6:58 Speaker 1: is worth reading again. The open letter took aim at

7:00 Speaker 1: the broader concept of AI and the music business, arguing

7:03 Speaker 1: that unauthorized generative AI platforms are fundamentally different from previous

7:07 Speaker 1: technological disruptions in the industry. The letter argued that the

7:11 Speaker 1: quote hijacking of the world's entire treasure trove of music,

7:17 Speaker 1: floods platforms with AI slop, and dilutes the royalty pools

7:22 Speaker 1: of legitimate artists from whose music the slop is derived unquote. Right,

7:29 Speaker 1: because when you create something using these apps, you're creating

7:33 Speaker 1: something that derives its content from all all the content

7:40 Speaker 1: that it has learned. You know, we call them large

7:43 Speaker 1: learning models. You know, it's taking that from from everything

7:50 Speaker 1: else that's available that it's learned, that it's taken in. Now,

7:54 Speaker 1: when we talk about whether or not that's okay, my

7:58 Speaker 1: argument has always been if I am arguing on the

8:01 Speaker 1: side of not having a problem with any of this,

8:04 Speaker 1: which I really don't, because you can't hold back technology.

8:07 Speaker 1: It never works out. You have to adapt. You can't,

8:11 Speaker 1: but you can't stop it. So you have to adapt.

8:17 Speaker 1: When I let's say I write a song, and I've

8:21 Speaker 1: written songs, I'm a musician. If I write a song,

8:24 Speaker 1: anything that I write is somehow informed and influenced and

8:30 Speaker 1: therefore is a product of all the music that I've

8:32 Speaker 1: ever heard over the course of my life. Right, anything

8:36 Speaker 1: that I create is somehow derived from everything that I've heard.

8:41 Speaker 1: So how is that different from when a large learning

8:43 Speaker 1: model learns music and then creates something from that. Now

8:48 Speaker 1: it is different in fundamental ways. But I'm just offering

8:51 Speaker 1: as a counter argument to you know, everyone who says,

8:53 Speaker 1: oh AI it's got to be stopped, we can't have

8:55 Speaker 1: AI generated music and so forth. Well, is it really

8:58 Speaker 1: different from when a human creates music? Now it is different. Again,

9:01 Speaker 1: I'm just playing Devil's advocate here, but that would be

9:04 Speaker 1: my counter argument to that. Well, if I write a

9:07 Speaker 1: song as a human being, my song that doesn't come

9:11 Speaker 1: out of thin air. My song is based on knowledge

9:14 Speaker 1: and information and experience and all of it from my

9:18 Speaker 1: own life and all the music that I've ever consumed

9:20 Speaker 1: over the course of my life. That's all I'm saying. Okay,

9:23 Speaker 1: getting back to the article, The letter arrives amid a

9:27 Speaker 1: growing volume of AI generated music hitting streaming platforms. Now,

9:30 Speaker 1: this is a problem that we've talked about on the

9:34 Speaker 1: show before too. Is all this AI generated music that

9:38 Speaker 1: ends up on Spotify, for example, Well Spotify already, I mean,

9:44 Speaker 1: I don't remember the numbers. We've talked about it before

9:47 Speaker 1: on the show. The amount of music that is up

9:49 Speaker 1: that is uploaded to Spotify globally on a daily basis

9:53 Speaker 1: is staggering. So then Spotify has to figure out, well

10:01 Speaker 1: what to get rid of because now that you factor

10:06 Speaker 1: in the ease with which you can create music using

10:09 Speaker 1: an app and then just upload it. Now it's it's

10:16 Speaker 1: that problem of you know, you only have so much

10:18 Speaker 1: storage and you have to keep creating more storage. And

10:22 Speaker 1: you know now that because people tend to think of

10:24 Speaker 1: it as well, it's just data. It doesn't take up

10:27 Speaker 1: any space physically, it's just data. But that's not true.

10:32 Speaker 1: Think about your own computer, your own devices, right, you

10:35 Speaker 1: only have so much memory. You know, I only have

10:37 Speaker 1: so much memory on my cell phone. Now I keep

10:40 Speaker 1: my cell phone very clean because I don't want to

10:41 Speaker 1: getting clogged up with stuff I don't need. But I

10:44 Speaker 1: only have so much memory on it. So it's not

10:48 Speaker 1: like it's no different for Spotify, for example, they only

10:53 Speaker 1: have so much memory. Now they can create more, but

10:59 Speaker 1: there is an expense to and also the larger the

11:04 Speaker 1: catalog of music that is available on the platform, doesn't

11:08 Speaker 1: it kind of dilute everything that's already there. So this

11:10 Speaker 1: is a problem for Spotify. Not that I have any

11:12 Speaker 1: great sympathy for Spotify because they don't pay very much,

11:16 Speaker 1: but you know, in terms of royalties and so forth.

11:18 Speaker 1: But you know, but now they've got a whole new problem.

11:23 Speaker 1: This is why a few years ago, before before these

11:26 Speaker 1: apps came out, even a few years ago, Spotify was

11:29 Speaker 1: struggling with this. They were having to start to go

11:32 Speaker 1: through I mean, obviously they have bots that do it,

11:34 Speaker 1: but having to go through and delete low quality demo

11:38 Speaker 1: recordings that people were just uploading to Spotify, thus diluting

11:43 Speaker 1: what's on the platform. People uploading things that probably shouldn't

11:46 Speaker 1: have been on there to begin with, because they weren't

11:49 Speaker 1: of high enough quality to even be on the platform

11:52 Speaker 1: to begin with. So now they've got a whole new problem.

11:55 Speaker 1: Let's see. According to getting back to the article, according

11:58 Speaker 1: to recent data from Deezer, proximately sixty thousand AI generated

12:02 Speaker 1: tracks are being uploaded to the Paris headquartered streaming service

12:05 Speaker 1: every day, with synthetic content now accounting for roughly thirty

12:12 Speaker 1: nine percent of all music delivered to the platform daily.

12:19 Speaker 1: Let's look at that again these numbers. According to recent

12:24 Speaker 1: data from Deezer, approximately sixty thousand, sixty thousand AI generated

12:31 Speaker 1: tracks every day are being uploaded. These are also revealed

12:41 Speaker 1: that up to eighty five percent of all streams on

12:44 Speaker 1: AI generated music on its platform were fraudulent in twenty

12:49 Speaker 1: twenty five, up from the seventy percent figure it reported

12:53 Speaker 1: in the prior year. Those streams are demonetized and removed

12:58 Speaker 1: from the royalty pool. By comparison, in streaming fraud across

13:01 Speaker 1: Caesers entire catalog accounted for eight percent of all streams

13:04 Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five. By the way, I'm not sure.

13:07 Speaker 1: I don't know what they mean by fraudulent. That is

13:11 Speaker 1: not clear to me. What do they mean by fraudulent?

13:13 Speaker 1: I'm not sure. Do they just mean anything that's created

13:17 Speaker 1: with an app or what do they mean? While AI

13:20 Speaker 1: generated music currently makes up only a small share of

13:23 Speaker 1: total streams on Deezer up to three percent, the platform

13:26 Speaker 1: maintains that generating fake streams remains the primary purpose for

13:29 Speaker 1: uploading such content. The letter also weighted into the ongoing

13:33 Speaker 1: industry debate over so called wald gardens in AI music,

13:36 Speaker 1: criticizing a recent LinkedIn post by Paul Sinclairs, who Knows

13:40 Speaker 1: chief music officer and EXWMG executive, who argued that closed

13:45 Speaker 1: AI systems limit how people engage with music Sinclair penned

13:49 Speaker 1: a lengthy post Grammy Week LinkedIn memo entitled open Studios,

13:55 Speaker 1: not wald Gardens, which took direct aim at the approach

13:58 Speaker 1: champion by universals A group in its recent AI licensing agreements.

14:02 Speaker 1: UMG was the first major to settle its litigation with

14:05 Speaker 1: Suno rival Udio in October twenty twenty five, alongside a

14:09 Speaker 1: licensing deal for a new AI platform set to launch

14:13 Speaker 1: this year. The concept of a walled garden was introduced

14:16 Speaker 1: within that announcement, a model where AI generated music cannot

14:19 Speaker 1: be downloaded or distributed outside the platform. Udio disabled downloads,

14:24 Speaker 1: with users given a forty eight hour grace period to

14:26 Speaker 1: retrieve previously created tracks before the walls went up. By

14:30 Speaker 1: the way, this is the first time hearing about this

14:32 Speaker 1: the walled garden concept. Around two months after that deal

14:38 Speaker 1: was announced, in his annual memo to staff, UMG chairman

14:41 Speaker 1: and CEO, Sir Lucian Grange appeared to warn against firms

14:47 Speaker 1: quote validating business models that failed to respect artists work

14:49 Speaker 1: and creativity and promote the exponential growth of AI slop

14:53 Speaker 1: on streaming platforms. So, in other words, he's saying, don't

14:56 Speaker 1: do this, don't make deals with AI, you're making a

15:00 Speaker 1: deal with the devil. Effectively, you're getting in bed with

15:03 Speaker 1: something you don't want. You don't want to encourage this.

15:06 Speaker 1: If you start making deals with AI, you're going to

15:08 Speaker 1: encourage this. I guess a quick counter argument might be, well,

15:12 Speaker 1: if you look back to the previous seismic disruption in

15:15 Speaker 1: the music industry, if you go back to Napster, what

15:18 Speaker 1: was happening. Well, you know, the industry finally had to

15:21 Speaker 1: start making some deals and some compromises and working some

15:23 Speaker 1: stuff out. But what he's saying is, don't do that,

15:27 Speaker 1: Do not encourage it. Michael Nash, executive vice president and

15:33 Speaker 1: chief Digital Officer at UMG, explained the company's position in

15:36 Speaker 1: further detail during an appearance on Billboards on the Record

15:39 Speaker 1: podcast last month and outline the waldgarden concept in stark terms.

15:44 Speaker 1: He said this quote, The concept of a wald garden

15:47 Speaker 1: is to set up, through AI, a component of the

15:49 Speaker 1: service for deep interaction with the artists and the content,

15:53 Speaker 1: but not to create derivatives that you then take off

15:56 Speaker 1: of the platform and post all over your socials and

15:59 Speaker 1: post on Spotify and Amazon Music and Apple unquote. He

16:03 Speaker 1: argued that by doing so you quote effectively use artists

16:06 Speaker 1: content and their brand to create derivative derivatives where you're

16:10 Speaker 1: going to compete with the artists on other platforms unquote.

16:13 Speaker 1: Beyond Sinclair, who joined Suno in twenty twenty five July

16:17 Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, the company has made other high profile

16:20 Speaker 1: hires from the music industry to support its efforts to

16:22 Speaker 1: build relationships with the sector, including former Merlin CEO Jimmy

16:28 Speaker 1: Sorry Jeremy Sirata as chief commercial Officer and former Spotify

16:32 Speaker 1: executive Sam Berger as Senior Director of Artist Partnerships. In November,

16:36 Speaker 1: Suno closed a two hundred and fifty million dollars Series

16:40 Speaker 1: C funding round. I don't want to get in all that. Okay,

16:42 Speaker 1: never mind, don't care about that part. But that's the

16:45 Speaker 1: end of the article anyway. But there you go. So again,

16:48 Speaker 1: I will not be joining any such campaign. It would

16:50 Speaker 1: be a critical of me to do so. But this

16:52 Speaker 1: is all about the say No to Suno campaign.