Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam and Katy Perry warn about AI music: ‘It is an attack on human creativity’

More than two hundred musicians are calling on tech companies to stop training artificial intelligence (AI) with their music and developing technology that generates music. In an open letter, Artist Rights Alliance writes that “the largest and most powerful companies are using our work without permission to train AI.”

The letter is signed by artists such as Billie Eilish, Pearl Jam, Elvis Costello, REM, Nicki Minaj, Imagine Dragons, Kacey Musgraves, Jon Bon Jovi, Luis Fonsi, Sam Smith, Camilla Cabello, J Balvin, Katy Perry and the heirs Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley.

AI models created to generate music must first be ‘trained’ on existing music, to know what it is and how it works. The artists covered by the open letter object to their music being used for this purpose, because it violates their copyright and because it weakens their own position. The music that AI produces is used to dilute the entire “royalty pot”, they write.

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Major streaming services such as Spotify distribute all revenues from advertisements and subscriptions among all streamed artists, pro rata. If more AI-made music is streamed, revenues for the rest will decrease. “For many musicians who are just trying to make ends meet, this is disastrous.” They call it an “attack on human creativity.”

Spotify is accused of filling playlists with ‘fake artists’, who make music under pseudonyms (often several)

Universal vs TikTok is all about AI

AI has been a concern for the music industry for some time. It was one of the reasons that the deal between Universal Music Group and TikTok fell apart earlier this year. TikTok lets users upload AI-generated music, and is even developing tools to let users create their own music using AI. Tiktok “sponsors replacing artists with AI,” Universal stated.

AI is also an important factor on Spotify. An AI model is the basis of personalized playlists such as Release Radar and Discover Weekly, and in December last year it emerged that they were testing a function that allows users to create their own playlist with AI. Spotify wants to be known for “AI expertise,” said Ziad Sultan, head of Spotify’s personalization department.

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‘Fake artists’

Spotify has also long been accused of filling their own playlists with ‘fake artists’, artists who make music under pseudonyms (often several), which reduces the share of revenue for ‘real’ artists. The Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter recently revealed that musician Johan Röhr is behind more than 600 ‘artists’ on Spotify, and with almost 3,000 songs has more than 15 billion streams – that’s more than Metallica or Michael Jackson. He is included in more than 100 Spotify self-curated instrumental background music playlists such as ‘peaceful piano’ and ‘stress relief’, with millions of followers.

It is not known whether AI will be involved. But according to tech blog Wired, songs made with AI are constantly being uploaded to Spotify, which are then streamed by bots: robots that listen to robots – to manipulate the listening figures. Spotify removed tens of thousands of AI-created songs last year.

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