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“Suno offers music for commercial projects. If you make music with the Basic (free) plan, Suno is the owner of the songs, but you can use them for non-commercial purposes. If you make songs while subscribed to the Pro or Premier plan, you own the songs and have a commercial use license to monetize them”

How can they give you a commercial use license for stolen goods? That takes some gall, being concerned with protecting their stolen merchandise. So, they’re now a music library. It would be an interesting lawsuit having Suno sue a user for unauthorized use.

John

I think that it will come down to "fair use."

The songs are out there in the world. They were used but not exactly replicated. They were morphed, processed and re-purposed. From finished songs, into song production tools. Traces of the original products, but not direct copies, or at least, disguised.

I dont know much about the law, but I think that the crux of it is the "morph." Was the original product changed enough when morphed so as not to be a direct competitor of the original product.

Clearly the end product of the "tool" does infringe on the original market...to me.

Forever, people in the arts have been stealing ideas from others that lead to output that they never would have had otherwise, and the art is changing them enough or just enough to disguise the theft and avoid breaching copyright laws.

As a practical matter, I don't know how a court will ever quantify a decision.
If someone were to listen to one of my AI songs, how would they ever identify and quantify what was derived from what?

I never used any of these AI apps, but from what I've read, all one has to do is type in instructions as to what you need. If you need a melancholy piano lounge track it will give you one. That makes it a cheap music library. That takes opportunities from real composers. Don't know if they can create an ASCAP membership, since they didn't compose it, but I'm sure they'll do it for royalties.

John

Here's ASCAP's stance on AI generated music:

How ASCAP Is Helping Music Creators Navigate AI
“Humans first. That is our position.”

-ASCAP CEO Beth Matthews at the 2023 ASCAP AI Symposium

The recent upswing in awareness about artificial intelligence has raised both exciting new possibilities and real concerns for music creators. While sophisticated AI tools are being used by creators as aids to composition, marketing and more, the regulations that will protect their work in the context of AI are still being written.

Nobody has all the answers, and that uncertainty can feel challenging. But ASCAP has protected the value and the dignity of our members’ music for more than a century of technological disruption, and we’ll continue to do so as AI evolves.

We view AI as an opportunity to innovate, and help our songwriter, composer and music publisher members do the same. How do we do that? By engaging in conversation with the music, tech and legal communities, and ensuring that our members have a seat at the table with policymakers. That’s what places us at the forefront of shaping the future of music and AI.

I dunno John,

When I read that it appears to me,

that ASCAP's stated position is that they have no stated position, other than to be there in "a seat at the table with the policymakers."
But where is the table?
Who are the policy makers?

This is really to protect from bot armies. To register as a paid member, they can at least verify the credit card and name attached. It allows them some options to battle 10K bots signing up and using the service to get free songs. You read it from a different vantage point, but that s the real situation. There won't be lawsuits as regular people can't afford to sue these companies and these companies can't afford to sue for infringement. What your concern is, I think is simply not what you think. If they used content to train, in most cases they worked out backroom deals with corporations to do so. This is why they are still operating. Meanwhile, they train their tech to NOT infringe on words or melodies. Try to upload and process any copyright protected song and YOU will be held legally liable for infringement because no company can monitor all copyright protected works in the world, especially since we get that right without making it public. But if YOU steal someone else's song and try to steal their lyric or melody, YOU will get sued if any legal action takes place from your actions, and Suno will not be involved any more than a guitar manufacturer would get sued if you used a Gibson guitar to steal a song. This is just a production tool If it isn't replicating someone's melody or lyric, where is this mythical "stolen" song? If they are guilty of anything, it is production "sounds" they might be reusing, but everyone else is ALSO reusing those same techniques on every commercial song over the history of recorded music. That "sound" is not something you can protect. The settings for reverb or delay or "fill in the blank" isn't something that can be protected, thus no infringement or theft exists. If we are going to open up laws preventing reverb settings, every famous song will be sued to oblivion because ALL of music has built on the same or new techniques that keep building over time. Please show me examples of this theft? There are so many examples of super famous songs using other people's melodies without any intention of having done so. 12 notes eventually have been done in every conceivable order and tempo countless times. Only the cost of lawsuits prevents non stop abuse of lawsuits. We still get crazy claims constantly. Imagine two songs use an echo on some often used word or phrase, are we going to open those flood gates? The word "love" has been used in every conceivable way, do we want that pandora's box opened?

Styles or genres are not protectable. EVERYONE is using familiar styles to inform their work. It just isn't theft. If it is, then no new music can ever be made.

[quote=Brian Austin Whitney]
If they used content to train, in most cases they worked out backroom deals with corporations to do so. This is why they are still operating.[quote]

Nothing is impossible?

But if the labels are banding together to sue, then what corporations are engaging the AIs in back-room-deals and giving them the go-ahead to use the music?

Big Corp, Big Pharma, BIg this and that...aren't specific enough to make the point valid.

Hey Brian, my main concern is these apps' ability to produce a music track simply from a description. That opens up Pandora's box. I'm not as concerned if someone uses it to improve one of their existing tracks.

Best, John

Well, here’s a bit of news from MusicBusiness Worldwide

After I posted that, yet again we see what I predicted at the start. All these "lawsuit" threats are nothing more than negotiations for labels and publishers to get a piece of these A.I. companies just like Spotify. In the end, they will screw over their own label artists, just like they did with Spotify AND they will screw over the 99%+ of artists and writers they do not represent by keeping all the money and setting unfair rates as standard. The FACTS are that most A.I. training is done on JPF members and other indie artists who will have zero representation, zero protections and who will receive zero % of the money these corporations will steal. The agreement will be put in place so the same scumbags get all the money who have ALWAYS gotten all the money. Meanwhile, indie artists will be the real losers. So the only way to fight back is use the tech against them by putting out music that is more popular than what they put out. Of course they control social media and radio and all other aspects of public access, but I have been preaching for 40 years to build your own first person fan base of 5K fans, and serve them directly and forget about all the rest of the nonsense that happens. You can't stop it, so you have to move faster, fly under the radar, make great music using these inexpensive or free tools and do your own thing as a clever small business. The rest is smoke and mirrors and the same old dirtbags getting the commercial music income.

All non label or non published songwriters will get screwed over and it is already happening. The labels and publishers (often the same companies) will steal 100% of the control and income even though they only represent <1% music makers. They did it with Spotify, they are doing it again with A.I. companies. Most of ALL the training of A.I. is NOT using label artists, it is using JPF members and other indie artists who will not get representation nor a share of any of the money. Major artists have too few songs recorded to train A.I.

You have stated that the labels and publishers are going to "screw over" artists and many others.
If the labels and publishers own a musical catalogue, they have a right to pursue the protection of it, the liquidation of it, or whatever else they want to do with. Including negotiate with SUNO and UDIO. It would be a breach of the constitution to tell them they could not..

If there is this massive group of musical copyright holders out there without sway (99%?) , then they are going to get washed around in the tides created by the big players.No news there. Never has been.

JAY Z and Beyonce were part of a group that was going to wrestle back control of their music from SPOTIFY and the streamers. It failed because the typical Beyonce and JAY Z fan wants their music for nothing. The root of most of this particular evil is the fan who wants everything for free.

WAYPO et al looks ready to destroy Yellow CAB and UBER.
COSTCO, WALMART and China have wreaked havok on Main street and American manufacturing.
AI appears to be about to up-end civilization, leaving so many people out of a job, I don't see how its possible not to have anarchy throughout the world.

If you were the head of a major label, your job would be to maintain the viability and profitability of your company.
You would have a right to take whatever steps you felt necessary to do that within the law. You and your company would also be victims of the tides. I'm sure the labels would return to an only-vinyl world if they could.

And you would do it to, just like the label heads do.

Constantly framing them as, "the man" and "the conspiracy"and "the screwer-over-ers" is not going to move any needles because it reflects a distorted reality that doesnt connect all of the dots.

And for a fee, you can steal all you want.

Ain't that America

You apparently don't know much about how things really work. I have battled these people directly. I got a standing ovation in Washington D.C. at an open hearing when I pointed out that the RIAA and other people negotiating for digital royalties claimed they represented 80% of writers and artists, but I pointed out the ACTUAL math that in truth it is less than 1%. By example, I used just our 125K members at the time and how at the same time, the sum total of EVERY SINGLE artist those "negotiation" actually represented was under 1K. And JPF is a literal drop in the bucket of worldwide music makers. Yet, these politicians would NOT give a voice or representation to the ACTUAL collective of music creators who these laws and rates forever effect. They literally were left speechless in response while the audience erupted in a long ovation.

The reality is these power players know 100% it is a scam, yet they do it because their influence and money allows it to. The reality of A.I. music training is that most of it happened with indie content on Spotify, iTunes, Soundcloud, YouTube and Tik Tok. But, the truth is that humans learn just the way A.I. does. They listen to OTHER creators, mimic their styles and sounds and process them in THEIR computer (their brain) and spit it back out through the filter of their talent and intent. A.I. does much the same. It's a blender of all those approaches. Then common points of style and approach inform their output. There is ZERO way to demonstrate which, if any, songs are being infringed on, unless an ACTUAL infringement occurs. But the A.I. is trained NOT to copy any specific song lyric or melody. Ironically, it is better at NOT infringing on copyrights than humans are.

Good luck to anyone trying to prove infringement by an A.I. because in truth, ALL music is a copy of the sum of what came before, either by direct influence, or cumulative influence. EVERYTHING infringes in the same way A.I. infringes.

This is the same argument of a synth playing a violin sounds versus a human. In this case it is a computer algorithm writing production of music verses a human doing it. The influences are simply wider and more inclusive than the normal human.

Elites and Corporations have power and that level of power is corrupt. It exploits humans at every turn to accumulate power and wealth. Politicians allowing such interests to set rates or laws for EVERYONE which ALWAYS directly benefit ONLY their interests over all others is 100% corrupt. It is neither Democracy or what should be allowed by OUR Government, a constitutional Republic. So yes, Elites are by nature, corrupt. Corporations are by nature ALSO corrupted, some worse than others. Individuals should be given the power of 1. Corporations should receive ZERO power from government, but that is not what happens. It is also why we are 36+ trillion in unpayable debt where over 1 trillion in interest are going to corrupt bankers who immorally have power over our monetary system plus all the corrupt politicians who allow it to continue. It IS us versus THEM. "the man" is the shorthand for this corruption. It IS a conspiracy because more than 1 party has conspired to achieve and use this immoral and corrupt power.

Brian

It is a fact that I don't how a lot of things work. I'm a bystander, standing afar to pretty much everything. I couldn't even change the tires on my motorcycles.
And I don't know how the music business works.

But I've been my own employer for most of my life and I know something about human nature, particularly at a level of business society where there is little oversight and people are governed, or not by their internal moral codes.

So what we MAY can very much agree on is that people are generally corrupt. It's to be expected.
As Chris Rock quipped once, "a man is as faithful as his options."

Read "The Prince" by Machiavelli
Any Shakespeare
Homer
The Bible

That will get you back to the Bronze Age.
If you want a real good laugh, read "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelias where he discusses the people that he will meet with that day.
They say that an American President is the most powerful man on earth. If you look at Meditations, keep in mind that POTUS power is nothing akin to the life and death power that a Roman Emperor had...and this is how he looked forward to the day.

"When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own — not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.

The scenery changes but human corruptibility is as constant as a blue sky on a clear day at noon.

I suspect you agree that the real golden rule is the man who has the gold makes the rules. (And maybe he pays the army too.)
Its true for sure that the big players in all industries are going to purchase influence and get things done their way.

The bad thing that I have seen over and over in my life, almost without fail...if the people most agitated by being left out of the power pay-offs ever achieve the power, they do the same things when they get it.

AOC and Bernie for starters. They interviewed a young woman who worked the bar with AOC. She said that AOC, the socialist, hogged the tip jar. Now AOC is driving expensive cars, attending GALAs and carrying expensive purses...and promoting neo-socialist economic equality. And she is the top polling democrat as I understand it.

None of that is any accusation of you. I don't know you. Just making general statements.

I have several songs copyrighted. I think that it was a waste of money. So I qualify as a bonafide member of the 1% left-out masses.
At some point, c'est la vie.

Marty

" I have several songs copyrighted. I think that it was a waste of money" - Marty.

Yes, definitely a waste of money. Keep in mind, a music copyright is effective when the music is set to manuscript or recorded. That said, to enter into an infringement settlement you'll need a Library of Congress" official copyright. Which you can obtain before the trial. Unless your song has generated $50,000 or more, forget it.

John

Looks right to me John. Thanks for the info.

Question for you: It's an opinion question.

Per my understanding:
Since I pay SUNO, they let me retain all the rights to any songs done with their systems, but when I upload into their system they take full rights to use the song however they desire and monetize it however they desire, while owing me none of those proceeds. I'm fine with that. They make my songs sound better than I ever could.

(realty check: chances are .000001 percent at best that anything that I write ever makes any money.)

The question is:
Do you think that the upload date and SUNO's theoretical partnership in the song is as good as a copyright, regarding proof of creation and ownership?

Marty

Even massive songs rarely go into litigation. The cost to BOTH sides is often way more than any hope of compensation o profit in the end. The few cases that DO go anywhere are so rare we can often list most of them in a conversation. I have multiple songs in my own catalog which are 100% identical in melody or major portions of choruses. But the idea of suing someone for infringement is silly. In most cases it isn't infringement that causes the duplication, it is being a human in the same world and processing them same info and influences and spitting out the same melody or lyrics or both. I think in 99%+ of cases, copyright is pointless and frankly doesn't serve society. Sure, VERY rare exceptions exist, but the way we use copyright today is ineffective to reality. Often it blocks creativity and the advance of beneficial technology, services and artistic growth by the masses. Any given melody you come up with has already been done many times by others in such a wide variance of contexts that plucking one such "infringement" and suing seems silly to me. I have melodies, like you must have, that have shown up years later in hit songs. It happens naturally and without ill intent all the time. Often cases get tossed out because even when a true theft occurs, it is often EASY to go back and prove that the party who was infringed up had also infringed on the same song many other previous commercial releases. There are only 12 notes. Even with the vast ways they can be combined, so many songs have been written by so many people, every combination has been used countless times. I don't have the answer for exactly what to do about it, but I think changes should be considered. Machines can and will now produce every possible combination and then mechanically reproduce it over and over and over. Go and listen to John Williams theme for Star Wars and realize he directly copied a classical composer note for note. Yet he has sued others for infringing on "his" work.

“There are only 12 notes. Even with the vast ways they can be combined, so many songs have been written by so many people, every combination has been used countless times” - Brian

Yes, it’s amazing how much music can be created with 12 half-tones. Although the octaves of those half-tones can be considered tones in themselves. When I composer at the piano, I think of 88 tones on my pallet. Well, the last high octave I can’t hear any longer – ha, ha. Think of the first two tones in “Over the Rainbow” – Some (C) where (octave C) over the rainbow (two different tones). Also, the order and duration of each tone in a song is infinite. Counterpoint and dissonance can completely change the perspective of even a recognized melody.

A mindset of thinking that everything has already been written is a defeatist one. I would guess that 90% of all music lies in the realm of closest related chords and melody. There’s still a large spectrum of possibilities that are less explored.

If I thought everything had already been written, I’d quit. There are still so many possibilities.

The Twisted Tango: http://schicksville.com/The%20Twisted%20Tango.mp3

Best, John

Uncharted territory Marty.

Best, John

what's overlooked in the twelve note limitation is rhythm. melody is a combination of pitch and rhyhm

ding ding ding,ding ding ding is not the same as ding DING ding, ding DING ding, its the rhythm that gives its endless possibilities

also in a chromatic scale there are 12 notes

We don't disagree, but machines can make billions (or more) songs in a day. Technically, they could likely use A.I. to create and post every audible melodic option, file copyrights, then sue people to oblivion. The courst have said A.I. can't "write " a song" but it certainly can write endless melody variations. And all they need is a single case to set precedence where a human does "X" to qualify for assisted copyright, and then a machine will provide all but that litigated requirement, and that human will file copyrights on every variation. Can they sue for infringement if someone uses it? Unlikely, but here is what they CAN do, they can find their version of any hit song, and release their version, having proof of independent authorship, and could ride the commercial wave of every chart song. This is why laws MUST change and be specific. But they won't because vagaries protect whoever can afford the best and most lawyers. This is lawfare which has been waged by elites on the rest of us for the past several centuries at least.

Brian

I think there might be even more such as emphasis. Say a violinist uses technique on a set of notes to make them unique to them alone, versus a piano plunking the same notes in the same order and rhythm. There really is a huge palate. It is why so few lawsuits ever go to a jury.

Plunking notes on the piano Brian? Ha, ha... Only a beginner would be plunking the notes.

John

I can't control your dislike of a simple term. Even though brilliant pianists can do brilliant things, I believe the violin has a bit wider lane to change their sound via technique. Plunking is striking a heavy blow to me. The point I was making is that percussive intensity from pp to ff (which I think of as a plunk), that is less of set of options in total than a violinist has on their instrument. I guess if you included the unusual use of a bow on a piano or hand plucking the notes etc., that expands things, but most people sit or stand and play the notes rather than using implements inside, though I have seen a LOT of experimental approaches over the years at our shows. .Are you bothered by my opinion or just averse to the word plunk? I have heard PLENTY of plunks on a piano (whichever definition you choose), as you must have as well.

Lol... I hunt and "peck".
Sometimes I ramble and "trample"!

But, I'm proud to say, I've never volunteered ANYTHING to any "AI library".

Not that there's anything stopping AI from stealing anything on the WWWeb anyway...

Sorry Brian, I just thought plunking to describe a piano touch was humorous. I know of legato, staccato and portamento, but I've never seen "plunking" on any piano manuscript. It just tickled my funny bone. No offence intended.

Best, John

Plunking Def.: To play a keyboard or plucked stringed instrument, especially in an inexpressive or unskilled way.

I always considered the piano the ideal instrument for composers/songwriters. I asked AI that very question, and this is what she had to say:

"Plunking Def.: To play a keyboard or plucked stringed instrument, especially in an inexpressive or unskilled way" - Craig

Well, it makes sense with a guitar or other similar stringed instrument. But I'd have no idea how to pluck a keyboard - ha, ha.

John