The No Fakes Act actually sucks | Matt Connarton Unleashed

This is okay. This is from Music Business Worldwide dot com, another great site for music industry news. But this involves

this involves our politicians. And we don't do politics on this iteration of the show, not anymore. We keep that for the podcast. We only do music and interviews and music industry news and so forth on the radio version of the show here at WMMH. But we do have politicians who are making laws about the music industry and about AI and all this stuff. And we've talked about the No Fakes Act on the show, which is trying to fight the proliferation of deep fakes. And these are all things that are going to continue to be problems that our politicians try to solve.

Now, if you're a longtime listener of the show, you've heard me talk about how I always get nervous when people in the House and Senate start talking about making laws making regulations about technology, because they very often have no idea what they're talking about, and some of them, the questions that they ask in these Senate hearings, some of these people I wouldn't trust to be a shift manager at a Burger King, let alone making decisions about technology and how technology is to be used or not used, and how it must be regulated going forward.

I get very nervous. And the example that I always like to use is if you don't believe me, if you think of being hyperbolic, go on YouTube. Not right now, wait till after the show, but when you get a chance, go on YouTube. Just look up Senate hearing Mark Zuckerberg. When you can find a congressional hearing of congress critters asking questions of Mark Zuckerberg, He's He's testified before Congress on multiple occasions. I believe and listen to some of the questions that these octogenarian and septagenarians senators and congressmen ask in these hearings, and the conclusion that you might come to very quickly is holy crap.

I do not want these people making decisions about technology and making laws and regulations about technology because they don't know what they're talking about. They're deeply confused, and they have no business getting involved in any of this, no, thank you. They can only make things worse, not better. And to be fair, some of them are well informed and ask good questions, but a lot of them are just you know, and they're not serious people anyway. They're not there to solve anything. They're there to get some camera time that they can then use in a campaign ad the next time they're running for reelection.

Let's be honest. Okay, but this is important. So again from music Business Worldwide dot Com no Fakes. Senate panelbacks bill that could cost platforms seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar per AI deep fake. All right, let's take a look at this. The US Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced the No Fakes Act, the bipartisan bill that would create a federal rite protecting Americans voice and visual likeness from AI generated deep fakes. And again, that's something that's come up a lot on the show too, just recently.

In fact, just last week, we were talking about Lionel Richie has moved to trademark his voice, his actual voice, and can you do that? Will that work? What about people who sound similar? Obviously, it's one thing to trademark your visual likeness. You own your likeness no matter who you are, whether you're famous, whether you're not famous, whether you create any kind of art, whether you are completely anonymous in the world. Nobody can just take your visual likeness, your image and do whatever they want.

With it. You own that. But what about your voice anyway? Nyal Richie says, yes, you can trademark your voice, and others have said that too, and that might be where things go. But again, this is about the No Fakes Act again, the bipartisan bill that would create a federal right protecting Americans voice and visual likeness from AI generated deep fakes. The committee passed the bill unanimously by voice vote on Thursday. Oh wow, so then you've got all these bipartisan this bipartisan support, Republicans and Democrats unanimously agreeing on something.

What could go wrong. Might be a good thing. I don't mean to be so cynical. Might be a good thing. I didn't preread this. I'm trying to keep an open mind. Might be a good thing. Let's see. So they passed the bill unanimously by voice But this is not a vote in Congress. This is on a committee. The committee. The Senate Committee passed the bill unanimously by voice vote, according to Deadline, which noted that three Republican Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Eric Schmidt raised first amendment concerns.

Yes, ah, that pesky first amendment clearing the committee sends them by the way, I don't like, I don't like I don't know anything about Eric Schmidt. I don't like Mike Lee or Ted Cruz. But just because I don't like them doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything. I'm not saying I agree with their I'm not saying again, I'm keeping an open mind on this a Deep Fakes Act, But

somebody there should always be at least one person in the room who says it, and by it, I mean what about the First Amendment. You should always have at least one person in every single room where a discussion like this is happening, who says that I think okay, it says you're clearing. The committee sends the bill toward a vote by the full Senate, after which it would still need to pass thousand representatives and be signed by the President before becoming law. The Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe No Fakes Act would give every American, not only public figures, a federal right to authorize or block AI generated replicas of their voice and likeness.

It carves out First Amendment uses such as news reporting and parity, and would establish a single national standard a notice and takedown system for online services, and a counter notice process for material removed in error. Two things about that little paragraph that jump out at me, Actually several things. Let's take the whole thing it carves out. First, Amendment uses such as news reporting and parody. Parody must be protected. Parody and satire must be protected, So you don't want to accidentally make a law that infringes on that, and that gets people in trouble for engaging in parody and satire.

That is critically important. Okay, next part of this and would establish a single national standard. A single national standard

always concerns me. But maybe that's better than having a patchwork of state laws. Maybe maybe not. I don't know. I'm keeping an open mind. I'm not sure. Okay. A noticing takedown system for online services and a counternotice process for material removed in error. That's something I always worry about, people getting caught in the net who shouldn't be. It's happened to me with YouTube. I've gotten caught in the net on things where I've had videos taken down that shouldn't have been. I always appeal it.

Sometimes I win, sometimes I lose, all right, But all of this is it makes me nervous. I'm not saying any of this is bad. I'm not saying that these are bad, that this is a bad idea. I'm just saying I don't trust this is I don't trust the government to get this right, and neither should you. It says here. Penalties under the bill are tiered five thousand dollars per work for an individual, twenty five thousand dollars per work for a company that creates or distributes a replica end up to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars per work for an online service that fails to comply.

Okay, let's stop there for a moment. Now, we're really getting into some trouble we have talked about on the show before. You know this this notion that people have tried to make laws, people whom I tend to agree with politically but disagree with on this subject. They have tried to make laws saying that social media sites have to be fully responsible for what their users post, meaning if somebody, for example, if somebody posts something, if a lot like this were to actually go into effect, like what some people have tried to pass, if somebody posts something on social media on say somebody posts something on Facebook and there's something illegal about the post, like maybe they're violently threatening somebody, which is illegal.

That's criminal threatening. You can't do that and Facebook doesn't catch it. Facebook does police that stuff, or you know, you can report posts like that, but what if somebody posts something like that, Facebook doesn't catch it right away, and then they're they're getting fined by the government for allowing this post to be on their platform. Or YouTube, somebody posts a video on YouTube that the some sort of illegal activity going on in the video and it doesn't get flagged and removed right away, then these social media platforms would be held liable for what goes on their platforms, for everything that goes on their platforms, for everything their users do on their platforms.

They would be liable or oh or a great example. You know, there was a Supreme Court decision about this and this was one of the Again I'm not a fan of the current Supreme Court as it is currently made up, but they got this one right. But it was about should Internet service providers be held responsible for everything that their users do using that service? So if someone does something illegal, say somebody has Exfinity for their Internet service and they do something illegal, should Exfinity be held liable for that?

Now? The answer to all of these questions is no, you can't hold internet service providers responsible for everything their users do. Do you want internet service providers to go out of business because they're getting fined by the government every day over things that their users do that they can't possibly that the service provider can't possibly control. Do you want to effectively end social media? Some people would like to do you want to effectively end social media as we know it because all these social media companies are now held responsible for every little thing that everyone on those services, everything that they do, you can't do it.

These companies do police their content. I have had many things over the years removed from Facebook because I allegedly broke some rule or something. Most of the time they don't even tell you what the rule was that you broke or what the post was reported for. I've had things again. I mentioned YouTube. I've had my problem with anybody who's a content creator has I had problems with YouTube. But this idea that now if you put a deep fake, if you make a deep fake, that violates the Deep Fakes Act or the no Fakes Act.

I'm sorry. You know, if you put that, if you distribute that using an online service, and that online service fails to act, fails to see it, flag it, remove it, whatever they're gonna do, they could be fined three quarters of a million dollars by the government. I don't think that's a good idea because what's going to happen is this. If that's the law, and every time you put a video on YouTube and there's something in it, there's some AI generated content in that video, and YouTube is staring down the barrel of a potential three quarter of a million dollar fine because you put something on their platform that violates this new law.

Imagine how much stuff is going to be getting taken down from YouTube on a daily basis, because there's even the slightest possibility that YouTube is going to pay a heavy fine for allowing anything that even comes close to violating this law and the parameters set within it. So that's not workable. It's the kind of thing where you've got to hold individuals accountable, not the platforms, And all you can do is encourage the platforms to hold individuals accountable, but it has to be the platforms doing it.

If it's the government doing it,

then you're going to destroy these platforms in the process. Now, all that's assuming that any of this actually ends up being enforced in the end, which it may not. They may not, Okay, getting back to the article again, This is from Music Business Worldwide dot Com. In a statement issued on Thursday, RIAA Chairman and CEO Mitch Glazier applauded the steadfast leadership of the bill's lead sponsors Senators Marsha Blackburn, Republican of Tennessee, Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, Tom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, and Amy Klovichar, Democrat of Minnesota, and Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar, Republican of Florida, Madeleine Dean Democratic Pennsylvania, Nathaniel Morin, Republican of Texas, Becca Blint, Democrat of Vermont, and Laurel Lee, Republican of Florida.

Glazier said, quote, we are encouraged by today's passage in the Senate Judiciary Committee and look forward to the bill's passage into law later this year. Unquote. He's president of the RIAA. That's the organization that certifies one of the things that they do is they certify albums. So if an album sells a million copies, it's a platinum record, they certify that. That's who certifies that officially, is the RIAA. If an album sells half a million copies, it's certified gold. They do that. That's one of the things that they do.

I would suggest to Mitch Glazier think about how think about how this might impact the music industry in a negative way. Again, if you begin to scare the holy hell out of all of these platforms because now they think the government is going to be coming after them with these very large findes, the effect of that might be that everything becomes so safe and sanitized that some artists are not being promoted or able to promote themselves in the way that they once were. There could be a knock on effect here that could be very bad for the music industry, the chilling effect that's going to come from this, Glazier said.

More. He said quote an extraordinary cross sector coalition including the creative community, child safety groups, free market groups, labor unions, free speech advocates, and AI developers have come together to support these protections for Americans voice and likeness from exploitive digital deep fakes, and consumers agree ninety two percent worry about the impact of AI deep fakes on authenticity, society, and culture. The No Fakes Act answers the call unquote. By the way, just to be clear, it count me in on that ninety two percent.

I'm worried about all this too. I don't want you to think that I'm not. I'm just worried about these platforms getting fined out of existence by the government every time somebody posts a deep fake. I'm worried about that. I'm worried about you know, somebody who who makes a music video using AI and they post it on YouTube, and then YouTube gets hit with their first three quarters of a million dollar fine from the government because maybe one of the actors in the music video looks like somebody famous.

Oh it's a deep fake now, and then YouTube starts closing all these accounts on YouTube because they're going to get very scared about taking any chances. They don't want to fight over this in court. Let's see the article says here it is a third attempt to pass the bill. A version introduced in July twenty twenty four ran out of time before that Congress ended and in April twenty twenty five reintroduction failed to advance out of committee. A bipartisan group reintroduced the latest version, S four five nine to one in the Senate and HR nine to one five in the House on May twentieth.

The bill has drawn support from Universal Music Groups, on Music and Warner Music Group, alongside Spotify, Google, Open, AI, IBM, and YouTube, as previously reported by MBW. Now, why would these groups or these companies, why would they support something that potentially could end up costing them a lot of money in fines? Why would they support that? I'll tell you why. What do they all have in common? Is there anybody in that list of people who you've never heard of? I mean, I think most people have heard of Universal Music Groups, Only Music Group, and Warner Music Group.

Right. You've certainly heard of Spotify, Google, Open, AI, IBM, and YouTube. There's nobody who hasn't heard of those, Right, those are the big guys. If there's a possibility that a law like this could start to wipe out the smaller guys, the upstart services, you know, the the whatever or some video platform that wants to compete with YouTube, Huh, maybe this No Fakes Act, with its extraordinarily large fines, maybe it can be used to wipe out some of the competition. I can't think of any other reason why they would support this, because, again, it has the potential to cost everybody a lot of money.

But but if you can get away with what you're doing because you're big enough, too big to fail. You're big enough to get away with what you're doing. But somebody smaller can't weather the storm that's going to come with this law. If the government enforces it and levies the's fines, those smaller companies, like who's a competitor to YouTube daily Motion? Maybe maybe people are putting deep fake videos on daily Motion. Daily Motion gets fined out of existence. That's a victory for YouTube. Right a little more here.

The federal bill follows Tennessee's Elvis Act, the first US state law to treat a person's voice as a protected right, which took effect in twenty twenty four. A federal digital replica framework is also among the recommendations in the White House's National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence, which the administration released in March. The framework says Congress should consider establishing a federal framework protecting individuals from the unauthorized distribution or commercial use of AI generated digital replicas of their voice, likeness, or other identifiable attributes, while providing exceptions for parity, satire, and news reporting part of the problem too.

And I didn't mention this earlier, and I should have when we were talking briefly about parity and satire. These things can be subjective. Uh. What one person thinks is parity or satire, another person might think is hate speech. And hate speech is never protected. I mean, in theory, it's you could argue it even hate speech is protected by the First Amendment. But I don't know that that part's gonna get tricky. That part always gets tricky. Uh. Not every stakeholder backs the bill. The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Now see see who's heard of the Electronic Frontier Foundation? Have you? I haven't. This is a smaller entity, but they opposed the bill. Why probably because they know they're gonna The big guys are a lot less likely to get wiped out. But somebody we've never heard of, they could be in danger from this. It says the Electronic Frontier Foundation has urged Congress to reject it, warning it could become a tool for online censorship that sweeps up parody, news and criticism. Oh yeah, it's coming. The companion bill HR eight nine one five was referred to the House Judiciary Committee after its introduction and has not yet had a markup.

So there you go. That's it for that

The No Fakes Act actually sucks | Matt Connarton Unleashed

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