The No Fakes Act actually sucks | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: This is okay. This is from Music Business Worldwide dot com,

0:04 Speaker 1: another great site for music industry news. But this involves

0:10 Speaker 1: this involves our politicians. And we don't do politics on

0:14 Speaker 1: this iteration of the show, not anymore. We keep that

0:16 Speaker 1: for the podcast. We only do music and interviews and

0:20 Speaker 1: music industry news and so forth on the radio version

0:22 Speaker 1: of the show here at WMMH. But we do have

0:25 Speaker 1: politicians who are making laws about the music industry and

0:29 Speaker 1: about AI and all this stuff. And we've talked about

0:35 Speaker 1: the No Fakes Act on the show, which is trying

0:38 Speaker 1: to fight the proliferation of deep fakes. And these are

0:43 Speaker 1: all things that are going to continue to be problems

0:48 Speaker 1: that our politicians try to solve. Now, if you're a

0:53 Speaker 1: longtime listener of the show, you've heard me talk about

0:55 Speaker 1: how I always get nervous when people in the House

0:59 Speaker 1: and Senate start talking about making laws making regulations about technology,

1:07 Speaker 1: because they very often have no idea what they're talking about,

1:11 Speaker 1: and some of them, the questions that they ask in

1:14 Speaker 1: these Senate hearings, some of these people I wouldn't trust

1:17 Speaker 1: to be a shift manager at a Burger King, let

1:20 Speaker 1: alone making decisions about technology and how technology is to

1:25 Speaker 1: be used or not used, and how it must be

1:28 Speaker 1: regulated going forward. I get very nervous. And the example

1:32 Speaker 1: that I always like to use is if you don't

1:33 Speaker 1: believe me, if you think of being hyperbolic, go on YouTube.

1:36 Speaker 1: Not right now, wait till after the show, but when

1:38 Speaker 1: you get a chance, go on YouTube. Just look up

1:41 Speaker 1: Senate hearing Mark Zuckerberg. When you can find a congressional

1:46 Speaker 1: hearing of congress critters asking questions of Mark Zuckerberg, He's

1:52 Speaker 1: He's testified before Congress on multiple occasions. I believe and

1:55 Speaker 1: listen to some of the questions that these octogenarian and

1:59 Speaker 1: septagenarians senators and congressmen ask in these hearings, and the

2:05 Speaker 1: conclusion that you might come to very quickly is holy crap.

2:10 Speaker 1: I do not want these people making decisions about technology

2:14 Speaker 1: and making laws and regulations about technology because they don't

2:20 Speaker 1: know what they're talking about. They're deeply confused, and they

2:23 Speaker 1: have no business getting involved in any of this, no,

2:27 Speaker 1: thank you. They can only make things worse, not better.

2:32 Speaker 1: And to be fair, some of them are well informed

2:34 Speaker 1: and ask good questions, but a lot of them are

2:36 Speaker 1: just you know, and they're not serious people anyway. They're

2:38 Speaker 1: not there to solve anything. They're there to get some

2:41 Speaker 1: camera time that they can then use in a campaign

2:43 Speaker 1: ad the next time they're running for reelection. Let's be honest. Okay,

2:46 Speaker 1: but this is important. So again from music Business Worldwide

2:51 Speaker 1: dot Com no Fakes. Senate panelbacks bill that could cost

2:56 Speaker 1: platforms seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar per AI deep fake.

3:03 Speaker 1: All right, let's take a look at this. The US

3:06 Speaker 1: Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced the No Fakes Act, the

3:10 Speaker 1: bipartisan bill that would create a federal rite protecting Americans

3:15 Speaker 1: voice and visual likeness from AI generated deep fakes. And again,

3:20 Speaker 1: that's something that's come up a lot on the show too,

3:22 Speaker 1: just recently. In fact, just last week, we were talking

3:24 Speaker 1: about Lionel Richie has moved to trademark his voice, his

3:29 Speaker 1: actual voice, and can you do that? Will that work?

3:34 Speaker 1: What about people who sound similar? Obviously, it's one thing

3:37 Speaker 1: to trademark your visual likeness. You own your likeness no

3:41 Speaker 1: matter who you are, whether you're famous, whether you're not famous,

3:43 Speaker 1: whether you create any kind of art, whether you are

3:46 Speaker 1: completely anonymous in the world. Nobody can just take your

3:49 Speaker 1: visual likeness, your image and do whatever they want. With it.

3:51 Speaker 1: You own that. But what about your voice anyway? Nyal

3:56 Speaker 1: Richie says, yes, you can trademark your voice, and others

3:58 Speaker 1: have said that too, and that might be where things go.

4:04 Speaker 1: But again, this is about the No Fakes Act again,

4:08 Speaker 1: the bipartisan bill that would create a federal right protecting

4:10 Speaker 1: Americans voice and visual likeness from AI generated deep fakes.

4:14 Speaker 1: The committee passed the bill unanimously by voice vote on Thursday.

4:19 Speaker 1: Oh wow, so then you've got all these bipartisan this

4:22 Speaker 1: bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats unanimously agreeing on something. What

4:27 Speaker 1: could go wrong. Might be a good thing. I don't

4:31 Speaker 1: mean to be so cynical. Might be a good thing.

4:33 Speaker 1: I didn't preread this. I'm trying to keep an open mind.

4:35 Speaker 1: Might be a good thing. Let's see. So they passed

4:38 Speaker 1: the bill unanimously by voice But this is not a

4:42 Speaker 1: vote in Congress. This is on a committee. The committee.

4:46 Speaker 1: The Senate Committee passed the bill unanimously by voice vote,

4:50 Speaker 1: according to Deadline, which noted that three Republican Senators Mike Lee,

4:54 Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, and Eric Schmidt raised first amendment concerns. Yes, ah,

5:02 Speaker 1: that pesky first amendment clearing the committee sends them by

5:09 Speaker 1: the way, I don't like, I don't like I don't

5:12 Speaker 1: know anything about Eric Schmidt. I don't like Mike Lee

5:15 Speaker 1: or Ted Cruz. But just because I don't like them

5:19 Speaker 1: doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything. I'm not saying

5:23 Speaker 1: I agree with their I'm not saying again, I'm keeping

5:26 Speaker 1: an open mind on this a Deep Fakes Act, But

5:30 Speaker 1: somebody there should always be at least one person in

5:33 Speaker 1: the room who says it, and by it, I mean

5:36 Speaker 1: what about the First Amendment. You should always have at

5:39 Speaker 1: least one person in every single room where a discussion

5:41 Speaker 1: like this is happening, who says that I think okay,

5:46 Speaker 1: it says you're clearing. The committee sends the bill toward

5:48 Speaker 1: a vote by the full Senate, after which it would

5:51 Speaker 1: still need to pass thousand representatives and be signed by

5:55 Speaker 1: the President before becoming law. The Nurture Originals, Foster Art,

6:01 Speaker 1: and Keep Entertainment Safe No Fakes Act would give every American,

6:07 Speaker 1: not only public figures, a federal right to authorize or

6:10 Speaker 1: block AI generated replicas of their voice and likeness. It

6:17 Speaker 1: carves out First Amendment uses such as news reporting and parity,

6:22 Speaker 1: and would establish a single national standard a notice and

6:25 Speaker 1: takedown system for online services, and a counter notice process

6:32 Speaker 1: for material removed in error. Two things about that little

6:37 Speaker 1: paragraph that jump out at me, Actually several things. Let's

6:41 Speaker 1: take the whole thing it carves out. First, Amendment uses

6:45 Speaker 1: such as news reporting and parody. Parody must be protected.

6:50 Speaker 1: Parody and satire must be protected, So you don't want

6:54 Speaker 1: to accidentally make a law that infringes on that, and

6:59 Speaker 1: that gets people in trouble for engaging in parody and satire.

7:02 Speaker 1: That is critically important. Okay, next part of this and

7:08 Speaker 1: would establish a single national standard. A single national standard

7:15 Speaker 1: always concerns me. But maybe that's better than having a

7:24 Speaker 1: patchwork of state laws. Maybe maybe not. I don't know.

7:28 Speaker 1: I'm keeping an open mind. I'm not sure. Okay. A

7:32 Speaker 1: noticing takedown system for online services and a counternotice process

7:36 Speaker 1: for material removed in error. That's something I always worry about,

7:44 Speaker 1: people getting caught in the net who shouldn't be. It's

7:50 Speaker 1: happened to me with YouTube. I've gotten caught in the

7:52 Speaker 1: net on things where I've had videos taken down that

7:56 Speaker 1: shouldn't have been. I always appeal it. Sometimes I win,

7:59 Speaker 1: sometimes I lose, all right, But all of this is

8:06 Speaker 1: it makes me nervous. I'm not saying any of this

8:08 Speaker 1: is bad. I'm not saying that these are bad, that

8:11 Speaker 1: this is a bad idea. I'm just saying I don't

8:15 Speaker 1: trust this is I don't trust the government to get

8:20 Speaker 1: this right, and neither should you. It says here. Penalties

8:26 Speaker 1: under the bill are tiered five thousand dollars per work

8:30 Speaker 1: for an individual, twenty five thousand dollars per work for

8:32 Speaker 1: a company that creates or distributes a replica end up

8:35 Speaker 1: to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per work for

8:37 Speaker 1: an online service that fails to comply. Okay, let's stop

8:43 Speaker 1: there for a moment. Now, we're really getting into some

8:45 Speaker 1: trouble we have talked about on the show before. You

8:52 Speaker 1: know this this notion that people have tried to make laws,

8:58 Speaker 1: people whom I tend to agree with politically but disagree

9:01 Speaker 1: with on this subject. They have tried to make laws

9:05 Speaker 1: saying that social media sites have to be fully responsible

9:11 Speaker 1: for what their users post, meaning if somebody, for example,

9:16 Speaker 1: if somebody posts something, if a lot like this were

9:18 Speaker 1: to actually go into effect, like what some people have

9:21 Speaker 1: tried to pass, if somebody posts something on social media

9:26 Speaker 1: on say somebody posts something on Facebook and there's something

9:29 Speaker 1: illegal about the post, like maybe they're violently threatening somebody,

9:33 Speaker 1: which is illegal. That's criminal threatening. You can't do that

9:36 Speaker 1: and Facebook doesn't catch it. Facebook does police that stuff,

9:40 Speaker 1: or you know, you can report posts like that, but

9:41 Speaker 1: what if somebody posts something like that, Facebook doesn't catch

9:44 Speaker 1: it right away, and then they're they're getting fined by

9:49 Speaker 1: the government for allowing this post to be on their platform.

9:56 Speaker 1: Or YouTube, somebody posts a video on YouTube that the

10:00 Speaker 1: some sort of illegal activity going on in the video

10:02 Speaker 1: and it doesn't get flagged and removed right away, then

10:05 Speaker 1: these social media platforms would be held liable for what

10:09 Speaker 1: goes on their platforms, for everything that goes on their platforms,

10:13 Speaker 1: for everything their users do on their platforms. They would

10:17 Speaker 1: be liable or oh or a great example. You know,

10:24 Speaker 1: there was a Supreme Court decision about this and this

10:28 Speaker 1: was one of the Again I'm not a fan of

10:31 Speaker 1: the current Supreme Court as it is currently made up,

10:34 Speaker 1: but they got this one right. But it was about

10:39 Speaker 1: should Internet service providers be held responsible for everything that

10:46 Speaker 1: their users do using that service? So if someone does

10:48 Speaker 1: something illegal, say somebody has Exfinity for their Internet service

10:53 Speaker 1: and they do something illegal, should Exfinity be held liable

10:57 Speaker 1: for that? Now? The answer to all of these questions

11:00 Speaker 1: is no, you can't hold internet service providers responsible for

11:03 Speaker 1: everything their users do. Do you want internet service providers

11:07 Speaker 1: to go out of business because they're getting fined by

11:10 Speaker 1: the government every day over things that their users do

11:12 Speaker 1: that they can't possibly that the service provider can't possibly control.

11:16 Speaker 1: Do you want to effectively end social media? Some people

11:19 Speaker 1: would like to do you want to effectively end social

11:21 Speaker 1: media as we know it because all these social media

11:23 Speaker 1: companies are now held responsible for every little thing that

11:27 Speaker 1: everyone on those services, everything that they do, you can't

11:32 Speaker 1: do it. These companies do police their content. I have

11:40 Speaker 1: had many things over the years removed from Facebook because

11:44 Speaker 1: I allegedly broke some rule or something. Most of the

11:47 Speaker 1: time they don't even tell you what the rule was

11:49 Speaker 1: that you broke or what the post was reported for.

11:52 Speaker 1: I've had things again. I mentioned YouTube. I've had my

11:55 Speaker 1: problem with anybody who's a content creator has I had

11:58 Speaker 1: problems with YouTube. But this idea that now if you

12:12 Speaker 1: put a deep fake, if you make a deep fake,

12:16 Speaker 1: that violates the Deep Fakes Act or the no Fakes Act.

12:20 Speaker 1: I'm sorry. You know, if you put that, if you

12:27 Speaker 1: distribute that using an online service, and that online service

12:30 Speaker 1: fails to act, fails to see it, flag it, remove it,

12:34 Speaker 1: whatever they're gonna do, they could be fined three quarters

12:38 Speaker 1: of a million dollars by the government. I don't think

12:44 Speaker 1: that's a good idea because what's going to happen is this.

12:49 Speaker 1: If that's the law, and every time you put a

12:54 Speaker 1: video on YouTube and there's something in it, there's some

12:58 Speaker 1: AI generated content in that video, and YouTube is staring

13:04 Speaker 1: down the barrel of a potential three quarter of a

13:07 Speaker 1: million dollar fine because you put something on their platform

13:10 Speaker 1: that violates this new law. Imagine how much stuff is

13:17 Speaker 1: going to be getting taken down from YouTube on a

13:20 Speaker 1: daily basis, because there's even the slightest possibility that YouTube

13:25 Speaker 1: is going to pay a heavy fine for allowing anything

13:29 Speaker 1: that even comes close to violating this law and the

13:32 Speaker 1: parameters set within it. So that's not workable. It's the

13:38 Speaker 1: kind of thing where you've got to hold individuals accountable,

13:42 Speaker 1: not the platforms, And all you can do is encourage

13:46 Speaker 1: the platforms to hold individuals accountable, but it has to

13:49 Speaker 1: be the platforms doing it. If it's the government doing it,

13:56 Speaker 1: then you're going to destroy these platforms in the process. Now,

14:01 Speaker 1: all that's assuming that any of this actually ends up

14:03 Speaker 1: being enforced in the end, which it may not. They

14:05 Speaker 1: may not, Okay, getting back to the article again, This

14:10 Speaker 1: is from Music Business Worldwide dot Com. In a statement

14:13 Speaker 1: issued on Thursday, RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier applauded

14:19 Speaker 1: the steadfast leadership of the bill's lead sponsors Senators Marsha Blackburn,

14:24 Speaker 1: Republican of Tennessee, Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, Tom Tillis,

14:27 Speaker 1: Republican of North Carolina, and Amy Klovichar, Democrat of Minnesota,

14:31 Speaker 1: and Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar, Republican of Florida, Madeleine Dean

14:36 Speaker 1: Democratic Pennsylvania, Nathaniel Morin, Republican of Texas, Becca Blint, Democrat

14:44 Speaker 1: of Vermont, and Laurel Lee, Republican of Florida. Glazier said, quote,

14:49 Speaker 1: we are encouraged by today's passage in the Senate Judiciary

14:52 Speaker 1: Committee and look forward to the bill's passage into law

14:55 Speaker 1: later this year. Unquote. He's president of the RIAA. That's

14:58 Speaker 1: the organization that certifies one of the things that they

15:02 Speaker 1: do is they certify albums. So if an album sells

15:05 Speaker 1: a million copies, it's a platinum record, they certify that.

15:08 Speaker 1: That's who certifies that officially, is the RIAA. If an

15:12 Speaker 1: album sells half a million copies, it's certified gold. They

15:15 Speaker 1: do that. That's one of the things that they do.

15:19 Speaker 1: I would suggest to Mitch Glazier think about how think

15:29 Speaker 1: about how this might impact the music industry in a

15:31 Speaker 1: negative way. Again, if you begin to scare the holy

15:36 Speaker 1: hell out of all of these platforms because now they

15:40 Speaker 1: think the government is going to be coming after them

15:43 Speaker 1: with these very large findes, the effect of that might

15:50 Speaker 1: be that everything becomes so safe and sanitized that some

15:55 Speaker 1: artists are not being promoted or able to promote themselves

15:57 Speaker 1: in the way that they once were. There could be

16:01 Speaker 1: a knock on effect here that could be very bad

16:03 Speaker 1: for the music industry, the chilling effect that's going to

16:05 Speaker 1: come from this, Glazier said. More. He said quote an

16:10 Speaker 1: extraordinary cross sector coalition including the creative community, child safety groups,

16:15 Speaker 1: free market groups, labor unions, free speech advocates, and AI

16:18 Speaker 1: developers have come together to support these protections for Americans

16:21 Speaker 1: voice and likeness from exploitive digital deep fakes, and consumers

16:25 Speaker 1: agree ninety two percent worry about the impact of AI

16:28 Speaker 1: deep fakes on authenticity, society, and culture. The No Fakes

16:31 Speaker 1: Act answers the call unquote. By the way, just to

16:34 Speaker 1: be clear, it count me in on that ninety two percent.

16:37 Speaker 1: I'm worried about all this too. I don't want you

16:40 Speaker 1: to think that I'm not. I'm just worried about these

16:44 Speaker 1: platforms getting fined out of existence by the government every

16:48 Speaker 1: time somebody posts a deep fake. I'm worried about that.

16:54 Speaker 1: I'm worried about you know, somebody who who makes a

16:59 Speaker 1: music video using AI and they post it on YouTube,

17:07 Speaker 1: and then YouTube gets hit with their first three quarters

17:10 Speaker 1: of a million dollar fine from the government because maybe

17:15 Speaker 1: one of the actors in the music video looks like

17:19 Speaker 1: somebody famous. Oh it's a deep fake now, and then

17:23 Speaker 1: YouTube starts closing all these accounts on YouTube because they're

17:29 Speaker 1: going to get very scared about taking any chances. They

17:31 Speaker 1: don't want to fight over this in court. Let's see

17:35 Speaker 1: the article says here it is a third attempt to

17:37 Speaker 1: pass the bill. A version introduced in July twenty twenty

17:41 Speaker 1: four ran out of time before that Congress ended and

17:44 Speaker 1: in April twenty twenty five reintroduction failed to advance out

17:47 Speaker 1: of committee. A bipartisan group reintroduced the latest version, S

17:51 Speaker 1: four five nine to one in the Senate and HR

17:53 Speaker 1: nine to one five in the House on May twentieth.

17:57 Speaker 1: The bill has drawn support from Universal Music Groups, on

18:00 Speaker 1: Music and Warner Music Group, alongside Spotify, Google, Open, AI, IBM,

18:03 Speaker 1: and YouTube, as previously reported by MBW. Now, why would

18:12 Speaker 1: these groups or these companies, why would they support something

18:19 Speaker 1: that potentially could end up costing them a lot of

18:22 Speaker 1: money in fines? Why would they support that? I'll tell

18:25 Speaker 1: you why. What do they all have in common? Is

18:31 Speaker 1: there anybody in that list of people who you've never

18:34 Speaker 1: heard of? I mean, I think most people have heard

18:37 Speaker 1: of Universal Music Groups, Only Music Group, and Warner Music Group. Right.

18:40 Speaker 1: You've certainly heard of Spotify, Google, Open, AI, IBM, and YouTube.

18:44 Speaker 1: There's nobody who hasn't heard of those, Right, those are

18:47 Speaker 1: the big guys. If there's a possibility that a law

18:52 Speaker 1: like this could start to wipe out the smaller guys,

18:55 Speaker 1: the upstart services, you know, the the whatever or some

19:02 Speaker 1: video platform that wants to compete with YouTube, Huh, maybe

19:08 Speaker 1: this No Fakes Act, with its extraordinarily large fines, maybe

19:12 Speaker 1: it can be used to wipe out some of the competition.

19:15 Speaker 1: I can't think of any other reason why they would

19:17 Speaker 1: support this, because, again, it has the potential to cost

19:20 Speaker 1: everybody a lot of money. But but if you can

19:25 Speaker 1: get away with what you're doing because you're big enough,

19:27 Speaker 1: too big to fail. You're big enough to get away

19:29 Speaker 1: with what you're doing. But somebody smaller can't weather the

19:32 Speaker 1: storm that's going to come with this law. If the

19:37 Speaker 1: government enforces it and levies the's fines, those smaller companies,

19:41 Speaker 1: like who's a competitor to YouTube daily Motion? Maybe maybe

19:45 Speaker 1: people are putting deep fake videos on daily Motion. Daily

19:47 Speaker 1: Motion gets fined out of existence. That's a victory for YouTube.

19:51 Speaker 1: Right a little more here. The federal bill follows Tennessee's

19:56 Speaker 1: Elvis Act, the first US state law to treat a

19:59 Speaker 1: person's voice as a protected right, which took effect in

20:02 Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. A federal digital replica framework is also

20:06 Speaker 1: among the recommendations in the White House's National Policy Framework

20:10 Speaker 1: for Artificial Intelligence, which the administration released in March. The

20:14 Speaker 1: framework says Congress should consider establishing a federal framework protecting

20:18 Speaker 1: individuals from the unauthorized distribution or commercial use of AI

20:21 Speaker 1: generated digital replicas of their voice, likeness, or other identifiable attributes,

20:26 Speaker 1: while providing exceptions for parity, satire, and news reporting part

20:31 Speaker 1: of the problem too. And I didn't mention this earlier,

20:33 Speaker 1: and I should have when we were talking briefly about

20:35 Speaker 1: parity and satire. These things can be subjective. Uh. What

20:43 Speaker 1: one person thinks is parity or satire, another person might

20:46 Speaker 1: think is hate speech. And hate speech is never protected.

20:53 Speaker 1: I mean, in theory, it's you could argue it even

20:55 Speaker 1: hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. But I

21:02 Speaker 1: don't know that that part's gonna get tricky. That part

21:05 Speaker 1: always gets tricky. Uh. Not every stakeholder backs the bill.

21:10 Speaker 1: The Electronic Frontier Foundation. Now see see who's heard of

21:15 Speaker 1: the Electronic Frontier Foundation? Have you? I haven't. This is

21:20 Speaker 1: a smaller entity, but they opposed the bill. Why probably

21:25 Speaker 1: because they know they're gonna The big guys are a

21:27 Speaker 1: lot less likely to get wiped out. But somebody we've

21:30 Speaker 1: never heard of, they could be in danger from this.

21:33 Speaker 1: It says the Electronic Frontier Foundation has urged Congress to

21:37 Speaker 1: reject it, warning it could become a tool for online

21:41 Speaker 1: censorship that sweeps up parody, news and criticism. Oh yeah,

21:46 Speaker 1: it's coming. The companion bill HR eight nine one five

21:51 Speaker 1: was referred to the House Judiciary Committee after its introduction

21:54 Speaker 1: and has not yet had a markup. So there you go.

21:58 Speaker 1: That's it for that