[Music1234]

“To me, the people doing simplistic jingles, soundbeds etc. will be hit hard. If you’re doing big scores for libraries I don’t think it will impact much, different demographics.”

FYI: Jingles are big time, prime time. Any track that finds it’s way into a major ad campaign can be a substantial royalty generator that pay just as well as “large scores”. Big national Advertisers will not touch AI music due to the risks, but I am also afraid that we are already in a period of “who would really even know?” Music Beds created by way of AI music generators like SUNO and UDIO can easily be uploaded to various stock music sites and it is not at all out the realm that a TV commercial editor will search and find a 100% AI track and use it on a TV spot. We are kind of at a point where it’s really hard to tell what is AI music and what is human made music? And who is going to stop AI music creators from registering their titles at PRO’s as if they are the actual “composer” of the piece?

This area of copyright law needs immediate attention. The longer we kick the can down the road and pretend this issue is not relevant right now, the greater the risks. Generative AI music sites need immediate government regulation. I wonder what the PMA position is on this? They just held a conference in LA 9-24 to 9-26.

[Music1234]

Listen to Shutterstock’s conference call carefully

https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/fffgc3rf/

Key Takeaways

121% revenue growth licensing data in Q2 – It’s profitable to license everyone’s IP but not pay the IP owners…right?

They have 3 types of deals they are engaging in to license our “data” (music files, titles, and keywords)

1. Term license deals
2. Large Corpus deals where they enter in partnerships where they receive cash and equity in new AI companies.
No revenue is recived but a revenue sharing product is being created with NVIDA and Data Bricks
3.They have engaged in Term License deals for 3 to 5 years so the customers get broad based access to the data for the express purpose of training AI models.

They state: “Accounting of these deals can vary depending on the structure of the deal. Some get paid right away upon transfer of the IP (intellectual property) over the few initial quarters.

Cue to 18:00 in and listen.

They stated at 20:00:

“our contributor community is compensated in each and every structure in line with our ethical approach to licensing data for generative AI”

Ha! Laughable! Where is the compensation? There has been no compensation for 16 months!. I highly recommend that everyone write to customer support at all shutterstock properties to ask when and how they will be compensated for these data deals where our IP is being handed over to companies like NVidia, META, and other “small and large companies wanting access to the data”.

Guys, this is just highway robbery here. None of this is being regulated at the moment by governments, but it’s clear as day from this conference call that they are giving away our IP to major players in the AI space like NVIDIA, MICROSOFT, META, etc….and profiting a lot from it! Our data is training generative AI music models

What exactly is “in line with our ethical approach to licensing data for generative AI”?
What exactly is the “ethical approach”?

As far as I can see, they are just licensing data and booking the profits for themselves.

They even stated that these deals can bring in 25 to 50 million dollars! Now I know not all of this is for music files, but certainly some of it is. Please write to support and ask where your piece of the pie is today. I’m the only one talking here. Are you all just fine and OK with the way this is playing out? Your music is getting sold/ licensed to NVIDIA and META and MICROSOFT and OPEN AI (To train their AI MODELS), but you are not getting paid.

[Music1234]

Legally speaking Shutterstock/ P5 did not comply with laws which explicitly state that sellers/ Licensors (Music Producers in this instance)) of intellectual property must first be asked to OPT IN with very clear understanding of what the goals are and were with licensing datasets to the largest tech companies like META, OPEN AI, GOOGLE, MICROSOFT, AMAZON, LG, etc…

You do not just send contributors of intellectual property a payment and then say “oh by the way you can always opt out of dataset deals.” There has been a major breach of compliance to the terms of service at that moment in time back in late 2022 early 2023. I don’t think any of us knew what “datasets” were, nor were we properly informed prior to the dataset transaction being made, nor were we asked to opt in with clear understanding of how these deals would be structured.

Frankly, we still don’t know anything at all about what they were paid first, and how they decided to share the revenue. I think any music producer who was dealing on the platform at that time has a very strong case against Shutterstock. Prior case law and compliance norms in respect to “opting in” would favor the argument that one must first willingly agree to OPT IN as opposed to being “unilaterally opted in”, then paid, then told one can OPT OUT after the fact.

This was an extremely risky move that Shutterstock/ p5 made 16 to 20 months back and frankly, we have no idea how they are dealing the music (or datasets) in 2024 nor how much? when? and if music producers will be fairly compensated

[Music1234]

Here are links to some key Press releases. I suppose we can add LG corporation to the list they are making lucrative AI Training deals with. The problem is that none of this revenue is being shared with rights holders in 2024. Yet, contractually speaking, they are obliged to pay contributors for AI training. “Support employees” for Shutterstock do not have a valid answer as to when the next round of AI Training earnings may post to our accounts.

https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-partners-openai-and-leads-way-bring-ai-generated

https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-joins-forces-lg-ai-research-advance-ai-technology

Shutterstock symbol SSTK is going to post earnings and host a conference call on August 6th, 2024

https://investor.shutterstock.com/news-releases/news-release-details/shutterstock-report-second-quarter-2024-earnings-results-august

I suggest that everyone call in and listen, maybe even ask some questions on the conference call, Shutterstock essentially has a monopoly on stock media at this point. They control a lot of this market. So much that it is dangerous how much intellectual property they represent for licensing.

[Music1234]

AI is only as good as the data it learns from. I was just listening to an interview from an ADOBE executive and how they are rolling out more AI generated photos and videos. There is a lot of BS talk about “responsibly” offering generative AI images, videos, music, etc. etc. What exactly is “responsible” here? I do not ever hear how any of these companies plan to compensate the human authors of all of this content.

BTW I have sent some very inquisitive emails to shutterstock to ask when I will be paid for the data that is teaching AI and they responded “we do not know” and staff has been told “do not tell anyone who we are selling data to”…and they are “closely monitoring these new AI developments”. I encourage all of you to write to pond 5 to ask when you will be paid for the data getting sold to mega cap tech (without payment to us, nor our knowledge of how large these deals are)…Is that “responsible” and ethical?

The reality is that if governments and courts do not step in immediately and rule on how human created content is training AI models and whether or not that constitutes “fait use” and can these new outputs be considered free of copyright or are they now the copyright of those who entered the keywords to achieve a new “output”?

Accoring to the contracts on SUNO and Udio, and I find it to be incredibly arrogant and disturbing, we can type in Happy, Hip Hop, Fun, With Choir, generate lyrics about _______________, we then own that output as if it is our original work! This is absolutely insane!

[Music1234]

It’s not just SUNO, I have been playing with UDIO for the better part of today and I hate to say it, but some of the cues I am “creating” are extremely good and outputted at 320KBPS mp3 which is a tiny pinch below broadcast quality.

SUNO songs with vocals do sound like overly autotuned vocals and you can detect “artifacts” but there are some cues that can be created where one can fool even the best producers and engineers on the planet. I do believe that some of these AI tracks are ready for prime time with some EQ magic, editing, etc…..

We’re done felllas. Our careers are over. The more I play with this technology, the more I realize that there is no reason at all to produce a track the old fashion way starting with hands on a piano or a guitar, selecting a tempo, and initiating that initial idea in the form of a chord progression, bass line, groove, or melody.

Either Governments everywhere shut these AI music generated sites down based on copyright infringement or … It’s over….. for all of us…..forever.

[Music1234]

The enemy is literally from within also. P5/ Shutterstock has been selling our “data” which is a sexy way of stating that they have been selling our music to Mega Cap tech to ingest and teach AI learning models. I asked p5 support about the next one off data set distribution will be coming but they can not answer that question. Just as AI companies can’t seem to explain where they all ingested their music data from, when it is so completely obvious that they are just lifting music from “anywhere that it is publicly available”.

Did I understand that Audio Sparx sold data sets to mega cap tech companies too?

I’m afraid too, this business is over as we know it. While many of us will be able to ride out the PRO royalties for a few more years, eventually that may dry up. Stock music licensing is a very fast dying business. Especially ever since SUNO AI launched. It literally is just shocking that this company is getting away with what they are getting away with. I mean folks, we have to push back on this, and fast, and hard.

[Music1234]

Thank God Dub Step went away. What an awful genre of music that was.

[Music1234]

My thoughts on foreign pro’s based on 15 years of data:

Netherlands and Germany BUMA and GEMA pay very well, UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway still very disappointing for extremely wealthy countries. Italy Spain, Greece, France, Austria, Belgium….also not too exciting, lots of pennies.

Australia, very rarely do I see a royalty over $10 so nothing great there.

Japan, Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, India, and Latin America – these areas seem to be a non event, very little action at all.

Canada, pretty solid..I do see lots of 2 and 3 figure royalties
Brazil – also quite solid, certainly lots of line item in the $10 to $90 range

Bottom line is that the real meat and potatoes of all statements seem to always come from USA, GEMA, BUMA STEMRA, Canada, and Brazil, This has been a consistent observation of mine for many years now. Some countries are just not in the mood to share advertising revnue the way others do.

[Music1234]

Had a great statement. One issue of concern moving forward is the SOUNDMOUSE variable. I received a nice 4 figure royalty from GEMA/ Germany for a track that I personally placed and negotiated the license for, but the title was credited to a non exclusive publisher for the back end prize. This resulted in the NE publisher getting $3500 as opposed to me collecting 7K (I did collect $3500 for the ad as writer) . Not sure I can do anything about this but this is now another battle some of us will have to deal with. Big soundmouse data enters the ring.

When I get my music into big brand TV ads, I want all the back end, especially if I personally negotiate the license. SOUNDMOUSE detection data is getting distributed to PRO’s and I do think the PRO’s are relying on that data more and more. This will just be another one of those issues we all need to deal with, and this fingerprinting warning has been in play for 13 years now.

I did not upload this track into soundmouse, but I am fairly confident my NE publisher did. Maybe it’s time for me to do a major SOUNDMOUSE upload effort. It’s not easy getting the music on that service, but clearly it needs to be done. Anyone have any thoughts on this…..?

[Music1234]

It’s just the dumbest investment and waste of time taking place in AI music space right now. The loss of time and money for any and all companies investing into generative AI Music is going to be massive. What thinking and emotional human being will want an AI track supporting their film, video, show, or ad? I tried a couple of keyworded descriptions and the music coming back at me is just a mish mosh of total garbage. There are no dynamics, there is no arrangement, there is no “feel”…I just do not understand why people are investing in this space?

AI works for generating drum grooves, perhaps bass lines, horn sections, string section parts and lines…but wow…

Invest in great search engines. What music users want is to type in a desription and then get great sounding “human made” compositions to consider. Even the $0 budget crowd will not download this garbage. Why invest in a garbage commodity that no one wants, ever asked for, and can not sound as good as a human made track.

If they can not top ACID, and Garage Band….don’t bother investing into this noise. At least with the older AI programs such as ACID and garage band you get some vibe and human feel out of the arrangements that are essentially “drawn” and assembled together.

[Music1234]

Well if this is General Mills or Nestle, you should be making a good chunk of change from all areas: the sync fee and the back end BMI PRO performance royalties. Your BMI statement should indicate the title being paid in the TV spot. Are those royalties getting paid to the exact title used in the Pet food TV Spot? If yes, then BMI is tracking the commercial properly for you. Just write an email to the music publisher who placed it and let them know you saw the TV spot on air and you are wondering if a sync fee was collected. There is nothing annoying about asking that question especially when companies like General Mills and Nestle are potentially the client/ advertisor. These companies have deep pockets and do business with integrity.They don’t nickle and dime with their production budgets to produce national TV spots.

[Music1234]

It’s that same old con artist story of “We will create new revenue streams for the artists under this new model and …blah blah…” Every time a CEO has written that message, the exact opposite occurrs. Shutterstock and Envato used that same playbook. They preach “new and more revenue streams” (with subscription services)…but the reality for artists is just a pay cut and devaluation. It should be illegal for any and all performing rights organizations to be privately owned and “For Profit” because their very job is to ensure that music writers get paid. It’s an overt conflict of interests. The interest now shifts to “pay the artist less, so we the owners and investors in the company, make more profits.”

The one bright side is a record payout coming up. I guess when record collections come in, the boys at the top say “dang, we are making this happen, so we deserve more.” It’s laughable how Goldman Sachs is “advising” BMI for a potential sale. GS is just doing a massive, easy, money grab. Shameful!

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/music-rights-giant-bmi-renewed-talks-sell-itself-sources-2023-07-25/

[Music1234]

This may need it’s own Thread Art but this is definitely disturbing news. It is just so sickening how Private Equity is just drooling to get their hands on these royalties so they can pay less, and pocket more. It’s a huge disappointment that the BMI board of directors allowed the PRO to convert to “For Profit”.

BMI will pay songwriters and publishers a smaller portion of its revenues as a for-profit company – while upping its own margin from 10% to 15% of collections. Will its members tolerate this change?

An extra 5% is a huge amount of money going to a few lucky, greedy a__ holes.

[Music1234]

Post a youtube link to the ad here. You should get a sync fee from your publisher because national advertisers do not just slap music on the air on major TV networks by downloading music from subscription models. While I suppose they can behave that way, typically music in heavy rotation on air demands indemnification and that usually comes at a premium price. The sync fee is often paid one to two quarters after the license was issued. Ad agencies typically take 60 days to pay for a sync license. A Major ad agency will often pay $5000 to $20,000 for a big brand national spot, but I do agree with Art that some advertisers will use cheaper stock sites and pay under $500 to license music in a TV spot. Which brands will NOT license for under $500? Think of brands like PG, GM, Ford, McD’s, Verizon, T Mobile, ATT, you get the idea…the big boys on the block. Pet Foods are not necesarily “Huge” but link us to the ad and we should be able to get you better advice after we see the ad.

[Author]

Posts