Will Spotify Take My Voice Away 

The CEO of Spotify said he has no intention of removing all artificial intelligence-generated content from the music streaming service. 

This year AI had the guts to clone the voices of Drake and The Weeknd and created a track. 

Daneil Ek spoke to BBC regarding the valid use of AI in creating music- but AI should not have the right to impersonate any musician without their consent.  

Mr. Ek saw three types of AI tools: those that enhance music and are acceptable, those that imitate artists and are not, and a more problematic middle ground where Al’s music was obviously influenced by other artists but did not explicitly counterfeit them. 

When questioned about the difficulty the industry was facing, he replied, “It is going to be challenging.” 

Although Al is not completely outlawed on the platform, the corporation forbids the use of its material to train Al or machine learning models, which in turn can create music. 

No artist is fond of the use of AI in music or any creative industry.  

Hozier, Irish artist and who is known for his famous song “Take me to Church”, stated that he would be considering striking against AI because it is a threat to his profession.  

He continued to say to BBC Newsnight that tech doesn’t meet the standards of art.  

Your two favorite artists Drake and The Weekend had not the slightest clue about the AI mashup that had used their voices on the song, Heart on My Sleeve, due to that song had been deleted from all streaming platforms including Spotify in April.  

Being proud of its creation, Ghostwriter had the guts to nominate the track for a Grammy and to no surprise it was turned down. A ghostwriter is a person who does the job on behalf of the author, yet the author claims the work. In this case AI has a ghostwriter as well.  

Mr. Ek stated that “You can imagine someone uploading a song, claiming to be Madonna, even if they’re not. We’ve seen pretty much everything in the history of Spotify at this point with people trying to game our system.” 

He continues to elaborate that there is a team working on precisely such issues.  

Charges

The Financial Times reported in May that thousands of tunes had been taken off Spotify after it was found that bots had been employed to inflate the number of streams. 

The company has made a significant investment in podcasts, including ones from well-known people like Michelle and Barack Obama and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, according to Mr. Ek. Neither have received new commissions. 

The contract with Harry and Meghan reportedly cost $25 million (£18 m), but just 12 episodes were provided over a period of 2.5 years. According to recent reports, a Spotify official disparaged the pair’s work ethic. 

Apple’s Role 

Spotify depends on Apple’s and Google’s app stores, of which Mr. Ek has long been a vocal critic. Both businesses charge smaller developers a 15% commission on in-app sales, which increases to 30% for those that generate more than $1 million in revenue. 

Spotify has also claimed that Apple makes it difficult for the company to interact with customers directly and advertise its services in other places. Over four billion people worldwide have access to the internet thanks to only two corporations, according to Mr. Ek. 

If we were to subtract 30% from our share, it would leave us with practically nothing, which would force us to close shop at a firm like Spotify where we already give back approximately 70% of our earnings to the creative community. 

Following a complaint from Spotify in 2020, the European Commission (EC) sued Apple in April for violating EU competition laws on this. The EC reduced its objections to Apple in February, although no decision has yet been made. 

Apple declared that it was still collaborating with the EC. It was stated that a large number of European developers generate less than $1 million in annual revenue, making them eligible to get a 15% commission from Apple. 

Does this tale bring to mind the child who didn’t prepare for an exam and tried to cheat but got upset when the teacher took his paper away?  

Inside Telecom provides you with an extensive list of content covering all aspects of the tech industry. Keep an eye on our Tech sections to stay informed and up-to-date with our daily articles.