Nobody Consented to This: How AI Is Using Artists' Music, Voices and Likenesses Without Permission

0:00David Martin:Just how big a threat does AI pose? And that sounds like a stupid question to ask because at the moment we're seeing military drones controlled by AI. We are seeing all the different threats to all different industries rise up. But particularly in music, we are seeing lots and lots of artists speak up and speak out because their music, their sounds, their recordings, and often their likenesses are being used without their consent. So something I wanted to talk to David from the Featured Artists Coalition, who was last week's guest on the podcast too, was about what they've been talking about AI.

0:39David Martin:We talked last week about their new funding around UK Artists Touring Fund, which by the time you hear this episode, will have closed the first phase of it and there will be a new phase to come later in the year. But towards the end of the interview, David and I spent 20 minutes chatting about AI policy. The government hadn't announced at the time we recorded this that they're not doing very much about AI. They've decided to pause their announcements of what they're doing. It's well worth looking into where the government, in the UK at least, is at because I think a lot of governments, especially in Europe, are doing a lot more to step up for copyright.

1:21David Martin:But to my mind, often it's a human rights issue. if you take someone's work without their permission if you take their identity in particular without their permission and especially with the awful deep fakes and things are being created there's a big big big issue there but with music that's being generated using ai tools it's the recording so like the sound of a drum the sound of someone's voice it's the sound of guitars all being sampled so all the things that in the uh olden days when hip-hop appeared and people were getting very annoyed that people were sampling songs without the permission or the consent of artists that's all happening with ai and then you've got the song structures that things have been trained on you've often got lyrics and ideas and songs you hear people literally change the same voice to become someone else's voice all of those things are huge human rights violations.

2:17David Martin:And I think that we should really be talking about this differently. I really like that Bjorn from ABBA has talked about AI as a human rights issue. And I think that increasingly fans really need to stand up and stand against these giant tech companies. So David and I get into a little bit of that in this episode. And this episode of the Drain and Sound podcast is brought to you in partnership with Kobuz, the ethical music streaming platform who we've partnered with since our episodes. where we had different guests come on, talk about the ethical alternatives. And our guests kept talking about this platform.

2:49David Martin:So we reached out to them and I'm thrilled that they agreed to partner with us, which means every week we make a companion playlist. And this week I decided to make a playlist about artists who speak up and speak out about AI. So you will find all sorts of new and wonderful artists on there. But mostly you'll hear legendary acts like Kate Bush, you'll hear some Max Richter, and you'll hear some Holly Hundon, who I love how she talks about the possibilities and the ethics of AI. Before we get into this episode, I want to say to you all that this is the end of this season loosely tied to resilience.

3:24David Martin:So to end the season, I'm going to do an Ask Me Anything episode. You can ask me literally anything. But if you want to ask questions about AI technology, if you want to ask questions about funding, if you want to ask questions about how different artists use music and how as fans we can use music to process things, then ask away. Literally, if you've got the most banal question, the most challenging question, if you want to give me a maths test, just send an email to podcast at drowningsound.org. That's podcast at drowningsound.org. And now we will pick up your questions over the next week or two.

3:59David Martin:So let's get into my interview with David from the Features Arts Coalition, where we begin by talking about the funding and then into artificial intelligence.

4:19David Martin:I guess my big question for you really is if a fund like this can be scaled and if the booming music industry can start to fund and invest in its future what difference do you hope that will make well you you talked earlier about tour support and lots of people talk about that in a sort of the halcyon days of tour support. And we're very honest with our friends and colleagues across the industry, actually, including the labels, tour support was a very expensive loan, actually. So we would rather be in a situation that's more altruistic than that and where we are doing this on a more frequent basis.

5:02I talked about investing in the future of the ecosystem and the sector. I also mentioned I'm quite optimistic about this the the quality of music and the state of artistry in this country I think my point would be really what we're trying to do is marry those two things up because I think that that potential basically the reason I'm optimistic is there is untapped potential and I think what we're trying to do here is sort of unleash that potential you know you would expect me to say this but we think that you do that by enabling the people that create performances and the people that create recordings to do those things um we talk about ecosystem a lot as well and you know i think one of the things with with the reason that we've done this with the support of the mu and with the and the mmf and the music manager support is that actually when that In the live sector, when that activity is happening, that's when the supply chain of personnel and of services is getting paid for as well.

6:07You asked Roxanne, talks about some of the costs that she that she incurs as an artist when she's touring live. Actually, when we went to Parliament with Lily from English Teacher and when she was asked about her costs, she sort of whipped out this black book of costs. And it also had photographers in there and insurance costs and crew and agents, agents fees. And actually, once you start to do that, and also when you move slightly up the capacity levels, that list of things in the black book of costs for artists increases. By funding artists, we're sort of saying, actually, you're funding all of that as well, because the activity is what funds those personnel and those services that rely on that activity.

6:51but also ultimately what what you want is we want venues to be full we want promoters to be able to invest you know we want festivals to be full but all of those things rely on that ability to get those performances into those places and so i i think there's a sort of um a sort of virtuous circle here that we we we see in like enabling that activity so i i think again i think those things are all connected i don't think it's very easy to separate out recorded music and live music yes it is for us within the industry but fans are generally fans of music whether it's live or recorded artists are not are generally artists who want to make music and present their music I think that's something that's sort of within the industry.

7:40And I think it's also important that in terms of building careers, the fact that those two things are interconnected is so obvious when you start to look at artists' careers or businesses, if you like, as a whole. Because if you're losing five grand when you're touring, as an independent artist, you're probably not spending that five grand, whether it's on your marketing. It's probably not the marketing. It's probably that five grand on recording your next EP or your next album. So I just I see that this investment. Yes, you want to do things that can that can last long term. And that's what I see that the donations into the live trust being.

8:20But there is also an ongoing need for investment. That's what the record labels have been. There is, that's why we have a British, you know, British innovation fund that funds R &D in lots of different sectors. You know, I think there's, yes, some things that structurally need to be fixed and sustained. But yes, there is an ongoing need for investment into those that create the art and create the performances.

8:48David Martin:On that point, obviously, the FAC has done lots of work around AI over the last year or two. and we're seeing this shift to non-consensual platforms as i like to call them that are using people's works often without their permission um or without the the explicit permission of people sometimes it's implied through the contracts they've signed with other organizations that have licensed their work without them necessarily being aware of it like we're seeing this shift and you can't go watch an AI play live the AI can't employ a lighting engineer and I think that the more that some of the major platforms push AI music to the fore or at least create more noise with it because it then blocks out that potential new fan that's looking up, that's spending two hours a week digging through music they find something they really love no they're not coming to play Guildford or Aberdeen because they don't exist and that could be someone being really excited by a piece of music and then there's no onward journey from that.

9:53David Martin:I guess when you talk about, the reason I brought it up is because you mentioned the UK investments, the amount of investment the government's put into AI platforms, the free port breaks for data centers, the discussion and some of the things that people like Peter Kyle I've heard say and before him, like the previous chancellor, Jeremy, suddenly got a mind blank of his name. I like to blank these people out of my brain and they don't exist anymore. And there was just so much conversation about the investment in AI, but that AI is not going to create as many jobs as like, I think 225 ,000 people work in the music industry.

10:37David Martin:And I guess there is that double pronged thing of like yes you can pay for this you can invest this money and for every pound you invest that might be three pounds that's going into the music economy i don't know if you're not going to be able to work that out yet and i'm not expecting you to but if that money's invested in ai technology that's not doing the same thing like how how do things like this project kind of interconnect to some of the other things you work on i guess is my question yeah at the moment in ai we're working very closely with our colleagues in the Council of Music Makers, so the other creator organizations in the UK, plus the manager organization.

11:15It's a lot of our work at the moment, that topic, partially because the technology is moving very quickly, partially because we feel the risk of that, and partially because Because of the belief, there is something innately important about protecting human creativity and the right to create. And that right to create is only of any value if the creation is able to be. The reason that copyright exists is to incentivize human creativity so you can attach a value to it so you can control it. So I think that it comes down to the fundamentals of why should we bother to invent something? Why should we bother to create something?

12:01So I think it's fundamentally important. I don't confess to be a future gazer, especially when it comes to technology. And I will tell you that when mobile phones came along, I put one in my cupboard at home and said, these are never going to catch on. So just take what I say with that in mind. And I think it remains to be seen what the public demand is going to be for AI. I think when you're talking about non-consensual platforms, you're talking about the music platforms that generate AI.

12:29David Martin:Yeah, they're generating things, but also the people that are generating soundalikes that are very similar, often using sounds and samples from artists without their permission. Yeah, they're mostly the same platforms. I think you put in a prompt, you know, a text to music prompt. I mean, I think what remains to be seen is what the level of demand is going to be from the public for AI generated work.

12:56And Roxanne, I think, touched on this and said it very eloquently. That human connection element is the essence of live music, I think. So I'm not concerned in that sense. as i say take this with a pinch of salt because i am somebody that said streaming would never catch on nobody would ever walk around with mobile phones in their pockets so you know that that's my that tells you about my powers of prediction when it comes to technology however it's only two and a half years ago we were talking about nfts taking over the world you know it was probably only a decade ago that everyone was going wild for for mobile ringtones and where are they now so crazy frogs living on his yacht though yeah exactly but well people made money from that for sure but my my point is it hasn't diminished the appetite for music and for human-made music and when you look at the stats for where ai generated music is landed in terms of consumption and how much of it is not being consumed at all etc not to say it's not a problem in terms of uh that that um erosion of the royalty pool uh and for the just the sheer um attention drain on humanity that all of that stuff creates.

14:09So I'm not saying that's not an issue. It is, but as I say, we work with our colleagues in the creator bodies around ensuring that the right to have a say how their work is used remains with creators. So I think maybe you touched on this in your question when you talked about non-consensual platforms and those that license to them. I think you're talking about the deals that have been struck by some of the major labels with some of the large. I always get Suno and Udio mixed up. Yeah, I do as well. And some of them have done deals,

14:43David Martin:but some of them were operating before they'd done the deals. Exactly. Well, they were all operating before they did the deals. And I think that in itself is a scandal. But we would say that, and we do say this, we've said this to government, we're starting to see it pop up now in the last few months, but nobody who signed their record contract in 2020 signed any specific terms around ai they might have signed something that said any future technology in the universe ever etc etc if these things go to court it's going to be a struggle to explain to a judge that you that somebody gave explicit consent for something they didn't understand because that's the very basis of explicit consent so um our argument with those rights holders when our position is that that they haven't given their rights up for those purposes because they couldn't possibly have envisaged them this episode of the drannin sound podcast is presented in partnership with cobus the platform that pays artists four times more than the industry standard that has high quality audio that has human curation which as a human curator is something that i truly value over the kind of algo slop that you get on some platforms.

16:03David Martin:You can really hear the difference. I know lots of places talk about the audio qualities and as soon as I moved across, it sort of felt like I was rediscovering music, which is one of the platform's slogans. If you're worried about your playlists, you can use Soundiz. It's a really good tool that's part of the signup process when you join Cobuzz. It just transfers everything across. If you'd like a free trial of this platform that's independently owned and made for music enthusiasts, head to drownedinsound.org forward slash playlists, where you can hear not only our playlists, but get a free trial.

16:38David Martin:You can also find these details in the show notes to this episode. And now back to this episode of the Drowned In Sound podcast, brought to you in partnership with Kobuz.

16:58David Martin:so i won't ask you what you think music would be like in 2050 then if you don't think you could predict i mean i'd love to hear your guesses but um i would love to mostly to hear your answer to the if you had 500 million how you would spend it to wave a magic wand and fix some things with the industry? I will answer that, but I'll also answer your 2050 question as well. I think it will be better. There is a dichotomy within the music industry about the volume of music that is available now because the routes to market have become shorter, easier, cheaper, et cetera, in lots of ways. The issue now is not getting to market, it's cutting through the noise within the market.

17:35But on the whole, I think younger people have better music taste than ever. I think the access to music is better than ever. I think the music that is coming out is better than ever. I think, you know, so I think that in 2050, music will be even better. I think that's the humanity in it. I think it will improve and I think we'll get better at that. £500 million question, Sean, is a good one. It's quite a challenging one.

18:01David Martin:Do I get that every year? The one and done, I think. I mean, I think Daniel Ek and Spotify give Joe Rogan, And I think he's had 250 and 200. And I think he's had a bit of a drip feed, but it's mostly an advance on his advertising money. But he's spending it on bringing Donald Trump on air. So that's money you can't buy. Anyway, that's a side question. We shouldn't get into that. You're a charity and a lobbying business and a not. Yeah, look, on the 500 million, mine's probably going to be quite boring because I would invest that 500 million because I think the output of that, I think the interest in that 500 million alone, I think that going back to the investment point, the industry has shifted.

18:44The investment from traditional routes is possibly in aggregate the same, but it's a much wider spread bet, if you like. I think people would be very surprised how much return can be gained from small amounts of investment in the right places. and look i i run the featured artist coalition you would expect me to say this put it put it in and roxanne touched on this as well she said give money to the people who know how to spend it which is why with the uk artist touring fund and the and the live donations i would like government not to intervene i would like to get to a place where we're operating ourselves because i think the industry knows best how to spend that money but what i would say is put it in the hands of people who are creating and releasing music and put it in the hands of people that facilitate that artists are at the core of music makers are at the core of the industry that that's you know that's not debatable but lots of artists don't want to be their own record label lots of artists don't want to be their own promoter they don't want to be their own they They don't want to run their own venue.

19:55They want those structures to exist. You have to invest in, I hate using the word product, but you understand what I mean, the performance and the recording. I think that relatively small amounts of investment on an ongoing basis from that high interest account that I've put the 500 million into would go far further and would return more money than most people would even recognize. You know, you look at music export growth scheme, for example. I think the average return on one pound is something like 13 pounds for the amount of money that that invests. That invests about invested 1.6 million last year.

20:36Sorry, this last financial year, this financial year. We finish at the end of this month, don't we? It sounds on the grand scheme, in the grand scheme of things, a lot of money. But you talked about the AI investment.

20:48David Martin:It's, you know, it's nothing. it's it was something like 20 million just signed off the first time jeremy hunt mentioned it and i remembered his surname exactly there you go yes yeah uh god it feels like that feels like ancient history actually as well well i interviewed hayley bosher the um oh yeah intellectual property expert on the podcast when that when he made this announcement because i was like did i mishear that is he really giving out millions for ai and like companies that are literally writing on the back of an envelope like this is what we're going to do as a business of tech that was even going back this was just as chat gpt had taken off which is crazy to think that that was not the prominent um it grew so quickly and the world shifted quite fast and um i guess one of the things when you were talking that i often think about with the funding is not always the people that get the money are the best people to know how to spend it and i wonder to what extent having some investment in what is the best per pound way to spend and things like even like all the different parts the music industry some mediators to work between them some people to do this and it not just be something they do on top of their other jobs um because there's so much there's so little bandwidth often like especially the people working in safeguarding and dealing with abuse and harassment a lot of those people are doing that on top of a day job yeah and like with really small sums of money and i think there's like obviously conflicting interests between different parts of the way the industry works and obviously stuff that's really good for major record companies is going to have way more people that have time resource expertise to argue that their stuff requires the support Whereas currently there's no one representing music fans.

22:38David Martin:Like there's nobody, like there's things like the Fanfare Alliance, which has done amazing jobs around and Adam's been on the podcast talking about the victory around secondary ticketing. But music fans don't have a seat at the table. The music fans voice survey was one of the first times fans had really been asked big questions about what they care about, why they're not spending money, those kinds of things. and like to see which magazines step in and be campaigning around these things. It's not, there's loads of bigger issues. Like I speak to organizations like Music Declares Emergency and Earth % and again, amazing projects they're working on.

23:20David Martin:But so little resource and so little ways of bridging what they're doing to kind of show the benefits of it all. And I guess even if the first million of the 500 million was just spent on right what do we all need who can who can figure out like you've just given someone 50 grand they're going to spend 20 grand of it on ads like can they sit down with an expert and not just throw it at the wall on adverts and make sure it's spent wisely and yeah like all of those things i think are like we've we've had little bits of funding on projects and honestly you sit there you're like well we didn't really expect to get this like how how can we spend this most effectively yeah um and not feel like we're just wasting it because we wrote something in a plan six months ago and things have shifted so anyway no it's really relevant actually you sort of brought us full circle here to the to the uk artist touring fund because it's why we've decided to set it up the way we have we're not giving grants away to say here go go and play live because you fancy it we're doing top-up grants because we feel it's the most effective and efficient way to spend the money.

24:29It's been more complicated to design it this way as a result, but we feel like we're able to say, we're topping up to show that, A, there's some audience demand. B, you're not going to go and play to empty rooms. C, somebody else is taking risk. We're trying to do a number of things, which maybe it's worth me touching on with it. But one of those things is addressing that market failure and that acute cost of living crisis right now but to your point we're not saying do you fancy having 20 grand to go to go out on tour because because you would like to and i think i think you're right also i would say that when it comes to artists a lot of what you're talking about about the decision making you know good artists tend to have good teams around them and you know i'm big in europe here that good artists will work closely with the good manager who will do some of that stuff that might not be the sort of the day job or in the original wheelhouse that the artist got involved in the industry to do so i yeah i think i think you're right it needs to be spent well i think also again coming back to the i think ai and technology is a good example again you look at ai and technology and it's like it's like somebody throwing money out of a window sometimes and then you hear 1.6 million that's been spent on megs and people go that's a lot of money and it's like it's not it's not i remember i remember when you're sitting in a

26:03David Martin:dressing room literally with a broken window yeah and look and it's minus four outside and you're like this venue just can't even afford to fix their dressing room window for the artist to stay warm i'm probably going to get the numbers wrong here but i remember when the cultural recovery package was announced culture recovery fund was announced during the pandemic and for all of culture i think that that fund i think was 2.3 billion that was announced to keep all the cultural businesses in the uk afloat and there was all sorts of scandal about who was getting it and how it was spent and lots of the creative industries i sort of turned in on themselves you know um and it was infuriating for me because there was a headline at the same time which said something like virgin atlantic bailed out to the tune of 5.2 billion and i was like this is mad and it's a great um there was also a stat i think the government at the time spent 800 grand just on adverts in them to keep the press going yeah and it's like yeah lo and behold the former prime minister got a very well-paid job at one of the newspapers that these ads went to yeah that's by the by yeah but i think that looking at how the money spent like i think it's a billion pounds a day being spent on the war in Iran as we record this.

27:19David Martin:Those numbers may sound massive. And I think there's that phrase in the industry, when there's a hit, there's a writ. And I think when there's funding, there's so many people scrapping over getting their bit of it that I think often people lose sight of, well, what's this for? What's the bigger mission? And I think you've really explained today, like why you're testing the waters with this fund. It's not going to be perfect it's the thing that you've you've been able to get going and to get in motion and i think that for the artists that get it it's going to make a big difference you're going to learn a lot yeah and i think that we'll make it really easy for artists to find the link after they listen to this and some people are going to miss out on the deadline and they'll find out about the next time round um but i think that as an industry we've not really figured out whereabouts the people that don't do this for profit are because the people that are in the entertainment business that are all about profit are really good at getting their hands on funds to find tax breaks to find all these different ways of working the system and the people that are working 27 hours a day running venues going on tours get trying to run their own band camp store shopify store book their tour book a tour like book all the hotels like those people don't have time to even step they probably don't have time to listen to this and they won't have time to apply for the funding and like if I could go right can you just give it to this person they're doing amazing things their music's great like that doesn't happen so I think that yeah there's a long way to go but it's all really great you got anything to add David I feel like I feel like this was meant to be a 45 minute chat that with tech issues has been much longer yeah thanks for understanding the spirit of it and we want people to come on that journey recognize the spirit with which we're doing it recognize where we're coming from and recognize that that we we know all of those things about ecosystem we know all of the we know that we're not doing it perfectly as you say um you know we're doing the very best we can not not that we're not doing as good a job as humanly possible but there is no perfect this stuff is an art and not a science so i think I think that they're the things that I would sort of say is this is a really positive intervention for the sector so come on the journey with us really support what we're trying to do and that sort of spirit of positivity really well I really enjoyed that conversation with David from the Featured Artists Coalition as I think I mentioned in the last episode I wrote an essay for The Quietists about a year and a half ago two years ago about 100 % merch and the campaign that Featured artist coalition were doing because believe it or not some venues take up to 25 percent of artist merch money and i thought it was a brilliant campaign they were doing and i've got to know dave a little bit since then and um it's the first time i've had him on the podcast he'd probably be back again because i love what they're doing advocating for artists and the ways in which they're using the live trust fund in partnership with musicians union the music managers forum we will let you know when phase two of their fund comes around because if you're listening to this now you have missed the funding sorry about that um but hopefully you'll be able to apply next time if you're a musician or if your friends are musicians are about to go on tour and they need the support i think that i've learned a lot this season of the podcast i've loved hearing different ways artists approach their sense of mission and their sense of purpose but actually feeling activated and doing something about the things which frustrate them like I think the conversation with Gurley even though it wasn't really a conversation about resilience it was very much a conversation about things that you can do I loved how Quez talked about making music late at night and how that really got him through a kind of darker patch and how his daughter inspired him to just get on with it make a mess and just doesn't matter get on and do it again we've heard from Gazelle Twin talking about how she decided to do a boycott and saw it work and how that felt and obviously we've spoken to some amazing inspiring people.

31:28David Martin:Jack from the Ticket Bank I think is one of the most moving conversations I've had on this podcast. I feel greatly honoured and humbled to be able to create a space where we can talk about the need for inclusive projects which allow people on benefits, some people in poverty, to get access to the arts, to music and I think that it's kind of a disgrace that they need to exist but I'm so glad that they do I'm so glad that more people in the music industry are now aware of what they're doing and can supply them tickets and I really hope that if you see your favorite band announcer tour ask if they're taking part in it like go have a look I think that the more people are aware of projects like that the more those hundred tickets that are just left unsold can allow people to get their first access to shows.

32:15David Martin:So I guess all that's really left to say in this episode is that don't forget if you want to send a question in email podcast at drowningsound.org you can ask me literally anything and we will record a special episode talking through different topics doesn't have to be on resilience or technology and I will do my damn best to answer your questions. I've been Sean Adams the host of the Drowning Sound podcast this episode was edited and produced by the team Mattel Studios, and I will see you next time. Bye for now.