An open letter from the non-profit Artist Rights Alliance, carrying the signatures of more than 200 artists, asks tech companies, digital service providers and AI developers to refrain from AI practices that infringe upon and devalue the rights of artists.
The letter calls on such organizations to “cease the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists,” stressing that any use of AI should done responsibly.
“Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere,” the letter says. “Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rights holders.”
The letter is signed by scores of top artists, including Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Elvis Costello, Darius Rucker, Jason Isbell, Luis Fonsi, Miranda Lambert and the estates of Bob Marley and Frank Sinatra.
The signatories point to the use of AI models trained on unlicensed music, which they call “efforts directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created ‘sounds’ and ‘images’ that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”
“We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem,” the letter concludes. “We call on all digital music platforms and music-based services to pledge that they will not develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content, or tools that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”
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