Tennessee becomes the first state to protect musicians against AI

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/22/1240114159/tennessee-protect-musicians-artists-ai

by greenie_beans • 2 years ago

31 67 2 years ago

Once the law takes effect on July 1, people will be prohibited from using AI to mimic an artist's voice without permission.

Good on them, but we need to do more: we need to prohibit the commercial sale of AI-generated art as well. What about combining 2-3 voices in a new voice? It should be prohbibited. And training on all human-made media needs to be banned also.

artninja1988• 2 years ago

...why?

kurthr• 2 years ago

I'll go a step further, how?

Sure it makes sense for a music center like Nashville to do this, but for the entire rest of the world? You can't block them from the source material without destroying the entire industry. So you'll just move the generation elsewhere. To be fair humans have "sounding like" each other down to their vocal tics since time immemorial.

You could label (secret key, ledger, hash) legitimate artist recordings and then just shame unmarked (illegitimate) ones. I'm not even sure you could get a national law to "protect the owner", but unless you get rid of the internet you're not going to enforce it effectively. All you can do is reduce its profitability.

vouaobrasil4• 2 years ago

Because AI will significantly damage society and we should be exceptionally cautious about it.

postexitus2• 2 years ago

While I agree with sentiment - it's a slippery slope. At what point does "training" stop. Is sampling an instrument "training"? Is trying to mimick other artists/instruments via electronic means (i.e. Autotune) "training"? Pandora's box is open and there is no way of closing it - besides consumer preferences.

BadHumans2• 2 years ago

You're being obtuse on purpose. Is sampling an instrument training an AI? No it's not. Is autotune AI? No it's not.

rightbyte2• 2 years ago

I'd rather abbolish copyright, patents and ip laws in general. Just keep trademarks. There is no patching of this broken system.

1shooner• 2 years ago

Out of curiosity, is your livelihood not at least indirectly reliant on intellectual property?

interestica• 2 years ago

If a new human artist emerges that sounds a lot like a previous AI artist, is the human prevented from producing music commercially?

krapp3• 2 years ago

It seems unlikely that a law intended to prevent AI from impersonating existing human artists would prevent a human artist from doing anything other than using AI to impersonate another human artist. However other laws related to copyright infringement might still apply, given that in context, "sounding a lot like a previous AI artist" means "sounding indistinguishable from an existing human artist."

vouaobrasil4• 2 years ago

No, the AI should not be allowed to function except in extremely restricted circumstances and it should have no rights.

CamperBob2• 2 years ago

Exciting times ahead. It wouldn't be real art if people such as yourself weren't clutching your pearls over it.

Go ahead -- make your rules, pass your laws, drive it underground. Throw the rabbit right smack-dab into the middle of that briar patch.

(Yes, I know, don't feed the trolls...)

vouaobrasil4• 2 years ago

Haha, if I had enough power to pass rules and make laws, AI would be destroyed already.

visarga3• 2 years ago

And training on all human-made media needs to be banned also.

You're right. Companies would need to implement draconian "content attribution systems" to scan all creative works to ensure no training data was derived from copyrighted sources.

This could result in a "chilling effect" where creators self-censor for fear of their original works being flagged as infringing simply due to incidental similarities. Because now we have to scan every human work, as it might have been generated with AI.

It opens up the prospect of expensive litigation over subconscious inspiration or vague resemblances to prior works.

Taken to the extreme, it could hamper creativity and innovation by making any new work legally risky to publish if AI analysis deems it too "similar" to something else.

krapp3• 2 years ago

And training on all human-made media needs to be banned also.

I'm as anti-AI as anyone, and most AI generated content is laughably inferior to the real thing, gross and vapid and dehumanizing, but I feel like training on human-made media is fine so long as it's voluntary, the rights of the author or artist are respected, and they're compensated for their effort.

Of course, that would mean retaining human employees and paying them as artists and designing the workflow of AI around making them more productive, instead of firing them all for prompt engineers or Turkers for pennies on the dollar, which would make AI less profitable than it could possibly be, which is why it will never happen.

mcbuilder4• 2 years ago

Tennessee is a very right of center libertarian type state, yet they all are very happy to engage in "protectionism" when it comes to their signature country music.

plussed_reader• 2 years ago

Laws for me and rules for thee!

lupusreal• 2 years ago

"Tennessee is a very right of center libertarian type state"

If that's a bad thing, then you're praising them for not being that way this time, right? Or are you criticizing them for not living up to your negative expectations?

Edit: Oh, I think I got it now. You're saying that normally right-leaning libertarianism is a bad thing, but in this case it would be a good thing. Doesn't that mean you're compromising your principles?

mcbuilder4• 2 years ago

For what it's worth, I think the law is an overreach. They are basically trying to outlaw a mathematical set of transformation from a training set of data to and an input file to an output file. I don't even think you should be able to patent NN weights or algorithms or their derivatives. But it's not clear here who judges if the output is "Taylof Swift" enough. There is this creator on YouTube who makes "bad versions" using AI, I guess they aren't welcome in TN. I'm against this law because it seems impossible to enforce, what happens when some guy in China trains a Garth Brooks LoRA? You can't run inference? I think parody rights are protected, or should Weird Al makes sure he doesn't auto tune too close. I guess my perspective on TN isn't nuanced enough, and people are calling me out on associating TN and "Libertarianism" and I'm calling them out on what I see as very non-free behavior.

waihtis5• 2 years ago

it's not protectionism when you're defending something from theft

visarga3• 2 years ago

Oh, I thought they trained the models on copyrighted music, but apparently they broke in and deleted the originals as well. /s

tenebrisalietum3• 2 years ago

it's not theft when the owner still has the thing.

If the owner never had the thing, it is theft, but subject and target are reversed (actions taken against me for money I never gave you are stealing money from me). This could be considered protectionism, but also extortion.

vegetablepotpie• 2 years ago

State governments are happy to turn a blind eye to their principles when politically connected industries ask for something. For example Texas, the state that is so free-market it gives you the freedom to have a $10,000 electric bill in a blizzard, signed into law SB13, which prohibits state agencies for working with companies that pledge to divest from fossil fuels [1]. This is the state of Texas mandating that private corporations invest their money in a specific way. It happens to be a way that benefits the states oil and natural gas industries, but is also costing tax payers $300m-$500m through loss of competition in financing.

[1] https://www.tpr.org/government-politics/2022-08-30/texas-law...

__loam• 2 years ago

To be clear, telling AI companies to fuck off is way cooler than the anti-climate accelerationism.

BuyMyBitcoins2• 2 years ago

Libertarians care a lot about property rights. I can understand how a Libertarian wouldn’t take issue with a law to protect the right to one’s own likeness.

It could be argued that using AI to duplicate someone’s voice is a form of theft. I can’t think of any Libertarians who think the government shouldn’t have laws around theft.

nobodyandproud2• 2 years ago

So hypothetically, if someone looks or sounds like an individual then are they in violation?

Suppose they’re identical twins.

AI can’t be a free-for-all and I’m perfectly fine with what Tennessee is doing here.

It’s the stated Libertarian position that I have questions on.

asdff• 2 years ago

Can you give examples of how its libertarian? Seems to me its no different than any other state in regards to taxes or requirements. For example zoning is still highly restrictive in terms of what you are allowed to build on your land.

bwanab2• 2 years ago

It's not at all. Source: ex-Tennessean.

triceratops• 2 years ago

Whatever gave you the idea it's libertarian?

oglop• 2 years ago

I can see you've never been to Nashville.

I'm not a country music fan, I hate the music. But I lived down there for about 5 years and it's amazing how many incredible musicians live there. You can walk down the street and it won't take long to find some musician just singing for cash putting on a professional level performance. I can't state it strongly enough, just jaw droppingly good musicians. Playing for friggin quarters and dollars.

It probably has more to do with the music economy which is massive in Nashville than any political ideal. I'm not sure that's protectionism, seems like common sense. They'd be stupid _not_ to do this.

dehrmann• 2 years ago

music economy

There's a relatively small market for live music, small market for widely-distributed new artists, and a never-ending supply of kids with a passion for music who will dedicate themselves to it.

swatcoder• 2 years ago

You're projecting memes from a prolonged national culture war onto a state with practical challenges to address.

It's not like "very right of center libertarian type state" is the Tennessee state motto or something, it's just a label you've attached for your own convenience in online debates and at dinner parties. That this action seems incongruent to your image of Tennesee is a sign that your stereotype is shallow and incorrect, not that Tennnessee is hypocritical.

mcbuilder4• 2 years ago

I'm just talking about my perspective after moving to East Tennessee and living here a few months. I'd say the people are much more libertarian that I ever noticed on the West Coast. I of course agree that states like New Hampshire are more of a "traditionally libertarian", but I've noticed a definite libertarian perspective when it comes to business and economic issues, while it's of course very socially conservative in other areas.

I making observations based on personal observations, not simply to make a point. I don't know where you're from or where you live, but I assure you I'm not making stereotypes, this is just what I've noticed from talking to my neighbors and members of the community.

I'm sure my viewpoint will become more nuanced as I continue to learn more, but I don't think I'm that off kilter here in saying that economically Tennessee (especially East Tennessee, maybe Nashville is different) leans more libertarian than a lot of places in the country.

TylerE• 2 years ago

They’re far right, but the opposite of libertarian. This is the heart of the Bible Belt. They’re all about telling people what to do and how to live their lives.

Actual right wing libertarianism looks a lot like New Hampshire. Their motto is “Live Free or Die”. They’re the only state without a seatbelt law - even though that means giving up on federal highway money.

woah• 2 years ago

Here's Hank Williams singing "Straight outta Compton" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSMaN6zAJYc

Listen while you still can

bwanab2• 2 years ago

I haven't read the actual law, but the description of it sounds like it's limited to things like imitating an artists voice. Certainly it makes sense to not allow a recording that claims to be Luke Combs singing, oh, say his new song "Fast Car"[1]. But, does it mean one couldn't create a voice that sounds a lot like Luke Combs as long as it's well labelled as AI-generated?

[1]Yes, I know it's a Tracy Chapman song.

russdill• 2 years ago

There's a lot of room for artistic expression that could be protected under the 1st amendment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnEIeVWLtbU

bastawhiz• 2 years ago

But, does it mean one couldn't create a voice that sounds a lot like Luke Combs as long as it's well labelled as AI-generated?

I don't think so. It amends previous protections preventing folks from using an artist's likeness to include voice. I don't think you could, for instance, create a TV commercial using someone's image and simply label it as AI to get around those protections.

The whole point of the law is to protect the likeness of a person. If you can just slap a label on it that would make it pointless.

beezlebroxxxxxx2• 2 years ago

I'm sure someone might try to argue that the AI generated song might constitute something like an "AI cover", but I would disagree. The issue is the creative act. Humans are creative and can emulate or even "cover" a song as close as possible and it's still largely protected as long as you don't explicitly mislabel it as the original or attempt to pass it as the original ("original" in this sense being the rights holder and owner).

An AI generated song, I would argue, is not really "creative" in the same sense. It's not even really a cover. It's a generated output built on the original IP to a degree that is well beyond human capacity because it's not human at all. It's machine generation and not artistic creation. People like to conflate the two, but they're being wilfully ignorant of the clear differences between the two. Prompting an AI model to output something is not the same thing as making it oneself. The only human element of an AI song is the prompt and not the output.

It's more likely that an AI song should and will be treated in the same way as clearing a sample in hip-hop, for example, even though it's also different in important ways.

atrus• 2 years ago

The only human element of an AI song is the prompt and not the output.

I'd argue against that. A lot of "serious" AI art isn't just throw a prompt and you're done. There's additional editing on top of that (of course content aware fill isn't AI because...reasons). And even then, have you seen prompts for really good stuff? Those are def not one shot things, and are a creative process in itself. It's annoying honestly, since I'm rarely ever able to get images that are as good as I've seen.

Art9681• 2 years ago

What would happen if I hired a voice/singing impersonator, kept copies of our recordings for evidence, trained an AI model, and promoted it as "Elbis Kresley"?

floor2• 2 years ago

This headline is infuriatingly backwards and offensive.

Extending the government-enabled monopoly power of the establishment media to prevent new art, technology and creativity from competing should not be treated as a good thing or as "protecting" them.

Rather than extending copyright to unprecedented new levels to strangle AI in the crib, we should be overjoyed that billions of people will now be enabled to use new tools to create art, music, poetry, and literature tailored to their specific desires.

We could be on the cusp of a new utopia, of empowerment of the average person and incredibly diversity of the creative arts... or we could watch as a handful of corporations get laws passed to give their cartel exclusive control of what music, film, art and literature gets published.

visarga3• 2 years ago

It's the NIMBY playbook. The ones who have claimed a stake in the space try to block others from entering. Cutting the ladder under them.

roody15• 2 years ago

Agreed our current system is setup to maximize rents by large corporations and private equity groups. It is quite a stretch to say this protects “musicians”.

Great so some John Lennon songs will be “protected” … despite his lack of being alive.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

Yea, the news media always seems to use the word “protect” for these laws rather than “restrict” because they are morally aligned with the usual copyright cartel companies (publishers and studios), rather than morally aligned with end users.

They are all fully aligned and share the goal of “strangling AI in the crib” as you eloquently put it. It’s going to happen, too, nationwide, because we always seem to give these Media Landlords outsized political power.

rustcleaner• 2 years ago

Rather than extending copyright to unprecedented new levels to strangle AI in the crib, we should be overjoyed that billions of people will now be enabled to use new tools to create art, music, poetry, and literature tailored to their specific desires.

No this is terrible for the purposes of propagandists. We live on human-farms and are managed by our governments and technocratic elite, through propaganda and incentive systems which increase in violent coerciveness the more we assert our individual sovereignties. You never signed that social contract you're following. The magic of the Magi is in control of the human psyche, the magic is in the last mile to human awareness. That knowledge has been passed down for millennia through esoteric occult teachings. I digress.

Propagandists must be able to serve their content without competing counterinforcements. You being able to generate your own porn privately with complete creative sovereignty (assuming a morally "flat" bias model) will destroy almost all avenues the propagandist has to influence your local sexual kink progressions (progressively slippery slope from vanilla college co-ed softcore towards slap porn or cuck porn). Porn too far fetched? How about being able to write reams of coherent novels with whatever the reader believed to be right and just? No amount of post-OWS woke identity politics propaganda (paid for by Wall Street, to take the OWS heat off them) can counter the sheer volume of counterinforcement autists like myself could churn out.

One benefit to the propagandists: people will probably atomize as our social protocols decay from lack of authentic critical feedback, as we all increasingly huff our own generated supplies.

krapp3• 2 years ago

we should be overjoyed that billions of people will now be enabled to use new tools to create art, music, poetry, and literature tailored to their specific desires

They aren't creating anything of the sort. The AI is creating it for them, and not to their specific styles, to a rough approximation based on the work of existing human artists that already exist in its data set.

Look at the Sora AI video generate from the prompt "an alien blending in naturally with new york city, paranoia thriller style, 35mm film"[0]. It's awful, particularly in its rendition of the background, and misses on almost every element of what one can assume the intent behind the prompt was. No actual cinematographer would intentionally make this.

And billions of people? Sorry? On what planet do billions of people have access to AI but not the tools and opportunity to create art on their own? Ugandans with $200 made a movie enjoyed by people the world over[1], every second of which has far more heart and actual creative value than anything AI could generate. AI isn't liberating anyone from anything, it's shackling people to centralized, corporate generators of mediocrity.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfiq6-NVJWA

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Killed_Captain_Alex%3F

paulmd• 2 years ago

Bit weird for them to do Elvis impersonators like this (voice is now protected as part of your image). Surely that’s protected speech…

Tennessee becomes the first state to protect musicians against AI

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