Latest news with #copyright
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud
LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters. Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently. The app will display an on-screen label warning about 'AI-generated content" and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators. The company said AI-generated music is an 'industry-wide issue.' It's committed to 'safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models," CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release. Deezer's move underscores the disruption caused by generative AI systems, which are trained on the contents of the internet including text, images and audio available online. AI companies are facing a slew of lawsuits challenging their practice of scraping the web for such training data without paying for it. According to an AI song detection tool that Deezer rolled out this year, 18% of songs uploaded to its platform each day, or about 20,000 tracks, are now completely AI generated. Just three months earlier, that number was 10%, Lanternier said in a recent interview. AI has many benefits but it also "creates a lot of questions" for the music industry, Lanternier told The Associated Press. Using AI to make music is fine as long as there's an artist behind it but the problem arises when anyone, or even a bot, can use it to make music, he said. Music fraudsters 'create tons of songs. They upload, they try to get on playlists or recommendations, and as a result they gather royalties,' he said. Musicians can't upload music directly to Deezer or rival platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Music labels or digital distribution platforms can do it for artists they have contracts with, while anyone else can use a 'self service' distribution company. Fully AI-generated music still accounts for only about 0.5% of total streams on Deezer. But the company said it's 'evident" that fraud is 'the primary purpose" for these songs because it suspects that as many as seven in 10 listens of an AI song are done by streaming "farms" or bots, instead of humans. Any AI songs used for 'stream manipulation' will be cut off from royalty payments, Deezer said. AI has been a hot topic in the music industry, with debates swirling around its creative possibilities as well as concerns about its legality. Two of the most popular AI song generators, Suno and Udio, are being sued by record companies for copyright infringement, and face allegations they exploited recorded works of artists from Chuck Berry to Mariah Carey. Gema, a German royalty-collection group, is suing Suno in a similar case filed in Munich, accusing the service of generating songs that are 'confusingly similar' to original versions by artists it represents, including 'Forever Young' by Alphaville, 'Daddy Cool' by Boney M and Lou Bega's 'Mambo No. 5.' Major record labels are reportedly negotiating with Suno and Udio for compensation, according to news reports earlier this month. To detect songs for tagging, Lanternier says Deezer uses the same generators used to create songs to analyze their output. 'We identify patterns because the song creates such a complex signal. There is lots of information in the song,' Lanternier said. The AI music generators seem to be unable to produce songs without subtle but recognizable patterns, which change constantly. 'So you have to update your tool every day," Lanternier said. "So we keep generating songs to learn, to teach our algorithm. So we're fighting AI with AI.' Fraudsters can earn big money through streaming. Lanternier pointed to a criminal case last year in the U.S., which authorities said was the first ever involving artificially inflated music streaming. Prosecutors charged a man with wire fraud conspiracy, accusing him of generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs and using bots to automatically stream them billions of times, earning at least $10 million. Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
The Independent
29 minutes ago
- Business
- The Independent
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud
Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters. Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently. The app will display an on-screen label warning about 'AI-generated content" and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators. The company said AI-generated music is an 'industry-wide issue.' It's committed to 'safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models," CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release. Deezer's move underscores the disruption caused by generative AI systems, which are trained on the contents of the internet including text, images and audio available online. AI companies are facing a slew of lawsuits challenging their practice of scraping the web for such training data without paying for it. According to an AI song detection tool that Deezer rolled out this year, 18% of songs uploaded to its platform each day, or about 20,000 tracks, are now completely AI generated. Just three months earlier, that number was 10%, Lanternier said in a recent interview. AI has many benefits but it also "creates a lot of questions" for the music industry, Lanternier told The Associated Press. Using AI to make music is fine as long as there's an artist behind it but the problem arises when anyone, or even a bot, can use it to make music, he said. Music fraudsters 'create tons of songs. They upload, they try to get on playlists or recommendations, and as a result they gather royalties,' he said. Musicians can't upload music directly to Deezer or rival platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Music labels or digital distribution platforms can do it for artists they have contracts with, while anyone else can use a 'self service' distribution company. Fully AI-generated music still accounts for only about 0.5% of total streams on Deezer. But the company said it's 'evident" that fraud is 'the primary purpose" for these songs because it suspects that as many as seven in 10 listens of an AI song are done by streaming "farms" or bots, instead of humans. Any AI songs used for 'stream manipulation' will be cut off from royalty payments, Deezer said. AI has been a hot topic in the music industry, with debates swirling around its creative possibilities as well as concerns about its legality. Two of the most popular AI song generators, Suno and Udio, are being sued by record companies for copyright infringement, and face allegations they exploited recorded works of artists from Chuck Berry to Mariah Carey. Gema, a German royalty-collection group, is suing Suno in a similar case filed in Munich, accusing the service of generating songs that are 'confusingly similar' to original versions by artists it represents, including 'Forever Young' by Alphaville, 'Daddy Cool' by Boney M and Lou Bega's 'Mambo No. 5.' Major record labels are reportedly negotiating with Suno and Udio for compensation, according to news reports earlier this month. To detect songs for tagging, Lanternier says Deezer uses the same generators used to create songs to analyze their output. 'We identify patterns because the song creates such a complex signal. There is lots of information in the song,' Lanternier said. The AI music generators seem to be unable to produce songs without subtle but recognizable patterns, which change constantly. 'So you have to update your tool every day," Lanternier said. "So we keep generating songs to learn, to teach our algorithm. So we're fighting AI with AI.' Fraudsters can earn big money through streaming. Lanternier pointed to a criminal case last year in the U.S., which authorities said was the first ever involving artificially inflated music streaming. Prosecutors charged a man with wire fraud conspiracy, accusing him of generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs and using bots to automatically stream them billions of times, earning at least $10 million.
Associated Press
31 minutes ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Music streaming service Deezer adds AI song tags in fight against fraud
LONDON (AP) — Music streaming service Deezer said Friday that it will start flagging albums with AI-generated songs, part of its fight against streaming fraudsters. Deezer, based in Paris, is grappling with a surge in music on its platform created using artificial intelligence tools it says are being wielded to earn royalties fraudulently. The app will display an on-screen label warning about 'AI-generated content' and notify listeners that some tracks on an album were created with song generators. The company said AI-generated music is an 'industry-wide issue.' It's committed to 'safeguarding the rights of artists and songwriters at a time where copyright law is being put into question in favor of training AI models,' CEO Alexis Lanternier said in a press release. Deezer's move underscores the disruption caused by generative AI systems, which are trained on the contents of the internet including text, images and audio available online. AI companies are facing a slew of lawsuits challenging their practice of scraping the web for such training data without paying for it. According to an AI song detection tool that Deezer rolled out this year, 18% of songs uploaded to its platform each day, or about 20,000 tracks, are now completely AI generated. Just three months earlier, that number was 10%, Lanternier said in a recent interview. AI has many benefits but it also 'creates a lot of questions' for the music industry, Lanternier told The Associated Press. Using AI to make music is fine as long as there's an artist behind it but the problem arises when anyone, or even a bot, can use it to make music, he said. Music fraudsters 'create tons of songs. They upload, they try to get on playlists or recommendations, and as a result they gather royalties,' he said. Musicians can't upload music directly to Deezer or rival platforms like Spotify or Apple Music. Music labels or digital distribution platforms can do it for artists they have contracts with, while anyone else can use a 'self service' distribution company. Fully AI-generated music still accounts for only about 0.5% of total streams on Deezer. But the company said it's 'evident' that fraud is 'the primary purpose' for these songs because it suspects that as many as seven in 10 listens of an AI song are done by streaming 'farms' or bots, instead of humans. Any AI songs used for 'stream manipulation' will be cut off from royalty payments, Deezer said. AI has been a hot topic in the music industry, with debates swirling around its creative possibilities as well as concerns about its legality. Two of the most popular AI song generators, Suno and Udio, are being sued by record companies for copyright infringement, and face allegations they exploited recorded works of artists from Chuck Berry to Mariah Carey. Gema, a German royalty-collection group, is suing Suno in a similar case filed in Munich, accusing the service of generating songs that are 'confusingly similar' to original versions by artists it represents, including 'Forever Young' by Alphaville, 'Daddy Cool' by Boney M and Lou Bega's 'Mambo No. 5.' Major record labels are reportedly negotiating with Suno and Udio for compensation, according to news reports earlier this month. To detect songs for tagging, Lanternier says Deezer uses the same generators used to create songs to analyze their output. 'We identify patterns because the song creates such a complex signal. There is lots of information in the song,' Lanternier said. The AI music generators seem to be unable to produce songs without subtle but recognizable patterns, which change constantly. 'So you have to update your tool every day,' Lanternier said. 'So we keep generating songs to learn, to teach our algorithm. So we're fighting AI with AI.' Fraudsters can earn big money through streaming. Lanternier pointed to a criminal case last year in the U.S., which authorities said was the first ever involving artificially inflated music streaming. Prosecutors charged a man with wire fraud conspiracy, accusing him of generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs and using bots to automatically stream them billions of times, earning at least $10 million.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- Business
- The Guardian
BBC threatens legal action against AI startup over content scraping
The BBC is threatening legal action against Perplexity AI, in the corporation's first move to protect its content from being scraped without permission to build artificial intelligence technology. The corporation has sent a letter to Aravind Srinivas, the chief executive of the San Francisco-based startup, saying it has gathered evidence that Perplexity's model was 'trained using BBC content'. The letter, first seen by the Financial Times, threatens an injunction against Perplexity unless it stops scraping all BBC content to train its AI models, and deletes any copies of the broadcaster's material it holds unless it provides 'a proposal for financial compensation'. The legal threat comes weeks after Tim Davie, the director general of the BBC, and the boss of Sky both criticised proposals being considered by the government that could let tech companies use copyright-protected work without permission. 'If we currently drift in the way we are doing now we will be in crisis,' Davie said, speaking at the Enders conference. 'We need to make quick decisions now around areas like … protection of IP. We need to protect our national intellectual property, that is where the value is. What do I need? IP protection; come on, let's get on with it.' The industry would like an opt-in regime, forcing AI companies to seek permission and strike licensing deals with copyright holders before they can use the content to train their models. In October, Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones, the owner of the Wall Street Journal, filed a lawsuit against Perplexity, accusing it of engaging in a 'massive amount of illegal copying' in a 'brazen scheme … free-riding on the valuable content the publishers produce'. Perplexity told the FT that the BBC's claims were 'manipulative and opportunistic' and that it had a 'fundamental misunderstanding of technology, the internet and intellectual property law'. Perplexity does not build or train foundation models – unlike other companies such as OpenAI, Google and Meta – but provides an interface that allows users to choose between them. The BBC said that parts of its content had been reproduced verbatim by Perplexity. 'Perplexity's tool directly competes with the BBC's own services, circumventing the need for users to access those services,' the corporation said. In October the BBC began registering copyright in its news website in the US, so it is entitled to 'statutory damages in relation to unauthorised use of these copyright works'. In the UK, original proposals published in a consultation indicated that the government could let AI companies scrape content unless media owners opt out, which the industry said would 'scrape the value' out of the £125bn creative industry. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, has since said that the government has no preferred option regarding AI copyright laws in the UK but promised the creative sector that it would not be harmed by legislation. 'We are a Labour government, and the principle [that] people must be paid for their work is foundational,' she told a media conference earlier this month. 'You have our word that if it doesn't work for the creative industries, it will not work for us.' Publishers including the Financial Times, Axel Springer, Hearst and News Corporation have signed content licensing deals with OpenAI. Reuters has struck a deal with Meta, and the parent of the Daily Mail has an agreement with The Guardian has approached Perplexity for comment.
BBC News
11 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Wales' papers: A55 tunnel fire chaos and burglar's brazen plea
Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.
