![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG1e3erLyfAL3X8fKffvtu7hTyz8CwUsBBuiaumcCgZUkCP-zvbMozeX8onZR6YTCGEnEZH8V7YqWjAnLF5wuO6p8mtmxbNoTzpipS9iFr8rftEySBQqMHyMRwTs9H_mvPId652k-6IrBTAXmYoivJRY33ppuOOr8PVkzKGHilu-vvWJeXME7y/w200-h200/WhatsApp%20Image%202024-07-16%20at%2022.35.32.jpeg) |
The Single's cover |
Over the last month, this Kat had to relocate from Stockholm to Brussels. Amidst the hustle and bustle of moving, a wave of nostalgia hit, bringing back memories of his dear mentor and Italian friend, Eleonora. In that moment of longing, the desire to write a song about her arose. However, lacking the necessary lyrical and musical skills, there was only one road to take: the Artificial Intelligence one.
You are invited to enjoy “The EleonORe Song” on repeat, as you read through the process of creating a song using AI.
Creating a Song with Generative AI: A Beginner's Guide
As everybody knows, a song comprises three essential elements: the lyrics, the music, and the vocals. While many songwriters traditionally begin by establishing the chord progression or melody before crafting lyrics and vocal melodies around it, I opted for a different approach. Drawing inspiration from Elton John's early catalogue, where lyrics were penned first—perhaps a sign for the success of my song—I decided to start directly with the lyrics using
ChatGPT. Here's the prompt I used:
write lyrics for a pop song about Eleonora Rosati; mention that she is the Oprah Winfrey of IP, the Queen of the IPKat, wearing a golden coat by Forte Forte and a Chanel necklace
The prompt itself is nothing special, merely giving the general direction with some specific mentions to better describe the idea of the envisioned song. Here is a sample of the lyrics from the chorus and the second verse:
Eleonora Rosati, Oprah of the IP, Guiding us through the law, setting minds free.
Queen of the IPKat, leading with style,
In her golden coat, she’s got that winning smile.
From patents to trademarks, she knows it all,
Her insights and knowledge, they stand tall.
Writing the rules, shaping the game,
Eleonora Rosati, remember the name.
It's evident from these eight lines that ChatGPT understood the task in its entirety, crafting lyrics that are easy to digest with a smooth flow and transitions and a simple rhyme scheme — exactly what a pop song needs to be successful.
Moving on to the musical composition,
Suno took care of everything, including the melody, harmony, rhythm, and instrumentation. I chose not to provide a detailed prompt, simply asking for an energetic disco/pop banger. The result speaks for itself... I created the greatest hit of summer 2024!
Jokes aside, the situation is quite alarming. A song of this quality took less than 10 minutes to create, whereas a traditional songwriting process might take weeks or even months. This rapid turnaround raises several concerns, from potential copyright infringement arising from the creation and use of third-party works to issues of copyrightability, authorship, and even image rights infringement.
How AI mastered Music
Every creative process begins with learning, and learning to a large extent involves imitation. As Aristotle noted in
Poetics, humans are naturally imitative creatures, making their first steps through imitation. But does something that holds true for humans apply to machines as well?
Indeed, for an AI system to generate this kind of outputs, it must be trained on vast amounts of input data—in this case, audio data. The success of algorithmic music generation relies heavily on audio mining of existing repertoires and catalogues. By exploring Suno's list of generated tracks, or even just from this one alone, it's clear that the system is trained on contemporary music genres (Vivaldi's work likely holds limited value for the target audience). This hasn't gone unnoticed:
RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, has already moved against Suno and Udio, alleging the mass infringement of copyrighted sound recordings.
Despite the fact that text and data mining exceptions have been introduced in multiple jurisdictions across the globe to enhance innovation, the current situation shows that those exceptions alone are surrounded by ambiguities, including having regard to their scope and their subsequent impact on the copyright infrastructure when applied for generative purposes.
In the EU, the adoption of the
AI Act (Article 53(1)(c)) has seemingly clarified the applicability of the text and data mining exception of Article 4 of the
DSM Directive to generative AI. Of course, this doesn't mean AI developers have a free pass to feed an entire internet's worth of music to their systems without considering reservation of rights and also the three-step test. (For more on that, check Eleonora’s article on
The three-step test and this Kat’s article on
AI covers)
Innovation, in this context, needs to be understood lato sensu, encompassing a wide range of creative endeavours that go beyond mere technical advancements. Balancing this type of innovation with creativity is essential to ensure that innovation doesn't trample over the rights of authors and rightsholders, but rather works in harmony with them, creating a fertile ground where creativity and progress are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.
More questions to be answered….
While "The Eleonore song" is an instant hit that will echo through every beach party along the Mediterranean and beyond, it also elicits reflections on legal issues well beyond the input/training phase.
For example: Are prompts sufficient to make one an author of the AI output? Is a generic description of the idea enough for me to be considered the creator? Who is making the creative choices in the end?
What about image rights? Since voice is not directly protected under copyright and the current image rights regime may not be exhaustive, does this imply that legal remedies for the mining of voice data to generate synthetic voices are lacking?
Equally important, how does algorithmic music impact the consumption of music when anyone can create personalized songs or entire playlists on the spot? Is it a real threat to the music industry or just a new business model?
Stay tuned as I release more tracks from my first EP, "CringeFest", aiming at conquering the pop music scene while voicing my concerns about these issues.
Dear Antonios, please let us know once the Eleonora song can be streamed at Apple Music, Spotiy etc.
ReplyDeleteLet us become serious now: Just one remark, also the president of Germany's GEMA, the main German interest group for the safeguard of interests of copyright owners (https://www.gema.de/de/die-gema ) recently said in a press statement that his organization will have an eye on AI generated music. He believes that such music relies mainly on training material (music) which itself was or still is copyright protected work of arts. He may have a point.
Tools like ChatGPT are as such not creative like artists but rather impressive machines managing to calculate an immense amount of data within a very short period of time. That itself cannot constitute a creative act subject of copyright protection.
But how about the plot? What comes into my mind is the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach. A real Bach expert could certainly explain it better than I am able to but many of his works (cantantas, oratories etc.) were commissioned by local nobility who paid him for. Sometimes he had to deliver a kind of sophisticated church song (with choir, organ and even with an orchestra) for every festivity of the church (and there were much more than we are still aware of today). Imagine, the local nobility would have told him that the cantata for an upcoming festivity should include elements of his passion of St. Matthew (“Matthäuspassion”). In fact, you find certain elements not only in the Christmas oratory (“Weihnachtsoratorium”), in the a.m. Matthäuspassion but also in certain cantatas or church songs. Furthermore the commission duke would have asked him to include a reference of a certain bible quotation or a combination of several of them and so on, should that not be regarded as a plot? A 18th century plot? And if so, would the local duke who commissioned a certain work of arts, have any rights in the piece of music composed by Bach? Certainly not!
How about the plots which we write in order to instruct ChatGPT and other tools? In both cases, in the 18th century plot and in the one for ChatGPT and others, one has to make up his or her own mind, one has to use his or her own intellect since the quality of the plot has an important impact on the output created by tolls like ChatGPT. However, is this already sufficient to claim Copyrights? I have serious doubts.
In case of Bach, the creativity lies in what he composed and therefore, he owned the copyright to his cantatas, oratories etc. to extend as copyright law existed at that time. Whether the local duke got then something like a license (which scope?) is something historians should decide.
For the moment, I am very sorry to say, but I fear that you probably do not own any copyrights in the song. What ChatGPT creates or better calculates cannot enjoy copyright protection. And your plot? Would Eleonora Rosati not have deserved that you take the time and certainly hard efforts to stimulate your own creativity when composing the 2024 summer hit for her 😉?
Anway, these are my thoughts for today. We are all part of an impressive not only technical development if not revolution and I will not exclude to come to a different conclusion in the future. The always very interesting IPKAT’s articles and many others to which it is partly referred to are always a great resource and will show help us to recognize many possible paths to view such topics you described in your posts from different angles. May be the courts will say one day, that all will depend on the individual case. That would be a solution but for those who have to advise clients probably not the most satisfactory one.
Best regards,
Christian Schalk
Leverkusen, Germany