The AI Music Showdown: What's Next?

Welcome to another edition of the best damn newsletter in AI.

This free newsletter is designed to keep you ahead of the curve and open your mind to using AI in your work and business.

Our #1 goal is to be useful. So please shoot us an email 📩 if you have questions or feedback, and especially if you implement something we share!

Here's what we're covering today:

• TikTok and UMG's showdown over AI music compensation

• Try out Perplexity.ai's CoPilot mode that writes code for you

• Rising concerns over AI-generated fakes

Let’s get to it! 👇

TODAY'S PERSPECTIVE

TikTok, UMG, and the AI Music Showdown

You may have noticed that TikTok grew silent last week—no Taylor Swift nor viral dance audios.

What happened

After their licensing agreement expired, Universal Music Group (UMG) pulled its entire music catalog from the platform. UMG accused TikTok of trying to build a music empire without adequately compensating artists and songwriters. And disagreements on AI compensation were a huge part.

Why it matters

We think this is another glimpse of the future of AI and compensation for the data its based on.

UMG's CEO has raised the concern that AI music could enable the creation and monetization of illegitimate songs. This unease applies to all industries, not just music. AI is constantly generating content that infringes on copyrights and patents — it was trained on them after all.

This dispute also highlights a disparity in bargaining power. This is in stark contrast to the New York Times lawsuit, where OpenAI claimed they didn't need NYT’s data. But with TikTok and UMG, the stakes are higher. It's not just about data; it's about the music that millions of users love.

The big takeaway

Artists may be able to stand up to specific platforms where authentic content is crucial (like TikTok) and demand greater protections against AI.

Depending on how this plays out — AI data protections may come piece-meal per industry.

We’ll keep a pulse on it for you.

TOOL HIGHLIGHT

Try it out: Code that writes itself

You might have heard that AI is really good at writing code - but most people don’t realize how this will fundamentally change the software and tools we use.

Today we want to show you one of our favorites — the CoPilot mode in Perplexity.ai 🤘 

Here’s what’s unique about CoPilot mode:

If you ask a simple question like “what headphones to buy for a podcast” - you might get OK results.

But CoPilot mode takes it one step further.

The AI will think about what follow up questions it could ask in order to give you a better result … ON THE FLY.

Check out the full post!

LINKS

For your reading list 📚

Companies are trying to make fast progress on the problem of AI fakes (especially ahead of elections)...

• Meta to expand labelling of AI generated imagery in election-packed year as it faces chronic and worsening content moderation problems

• Meta says you better disclose your AI fakes or it might just pull them as the company builds internal tools to catch synthetic media and collaborates with groups on content authenticity initiatives

• OpenAI is adding new watermarks to DALL-E 3 as it includes metadata and visible symbols to identify AI-generated content

The regulations around AI are picking up (good!)...

• EU proposes criminalizing AI-generated child sexual abuse and deepfakes as it aims to address growing risks from kids' increased online presence and fast-evolving generative AI technologies

• Oversight Board calls on Meta to rewrite 'incoherent' rules against faked videos as critics argue that Meta's Oversight Board reviews are insufficient given the rapid spread of misinformation

That's all!

We'll see you again soon! Thoughts, feedback and questions are much appreciated - respond here or shoot us a note at [email protected].

Cheers,

🪄 The AI Exchange Team