200+ Musicians Including Katy Perry and Billie Eilish Sign an Open Letter to Ban AI Music Tools from the Industry

• 200 artists including Katy Perry, Nicki Minaj, the Jonas brothers, and Zayn Malik have signed an open letter calling for the ban of AI music tools
• The letter alleges that these tools train on original songs without compensating the creators and are trying to mimic the voices of popular artists.
• Surprisingly, a handful of artists such as Electronic artist Grimes and DJ David Guetta have spoken out in support of AI music tools

200 artists have signed an open letter calling to put an end to the predatory use of AI in the music industry. The open letter was organized by a campaign group called The Artists' Rights Alliance and posted on Medium - a popular long-format writing platform.

The list contains some really popular names such as:

• Katy Perry
• Billie Eilish
• Nicki Minaj
• the Jonas Brothers
• Zayn Malik
• the Bob Marley estate
• Noah Kahan
• Pearl Jam

The main purpose of the letter is to stop tech companies from developing AI-powered music-making tools. They feel that if AI music tools are actually launched, it will not only undermine human artistry but also infringe upon their rights as artistic rights.

This assault on human creativity must be stopped. We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists' voices and likenesses, violate creators' rights, and destroy the music ecosystem.Open letterHow AI Music Tools Can Be Devastating For The Industry And Its Artists?

There are a few issues the letter talks about.

• Issue 1 - The letter addresses the fact that not every musician making money off their songs is a big shot - some of them are barely making ends meet. By introducing tools like these, AI companies are essentially snatching away their livelihood.

• Issue 2 - These AI music tools use original songs created by these artists for training without the artist's consent.

We already know that AI needs a training dataset. For example, when ChatGPT was being trained to write articles, a lot of original pieces from the New York Times were used which led to a massive lawsuit that was filed against OpenAI and Microsoft.

The same thing is happening again with the music artists - their hard work and creativity are being stolen without any fair compensation.

Now, some AI companies like Adobe and Stability AI might seem a little better than others since they are only using licensed or royalty-free music for training purposes.

However, while this might spare entertainment songwriters, it'll still be a heavy blow to those who create commercial jingles and advertisement songs. Slowly but surely, they might get replaced by AI.

• Issue 3 - It's not just the lyrics of the songs that are at stake. A lot of AI tools are also trying to mimic the voices of renowned artists.

For example, just a few months ago, an AI-generated song mimicking the voice of Drake and The Weekend went viral. The song garnered a lot of attention on both Spotify and Apple Music before being taken down.

Drake has obviously voiced his displeasure over the incident and many other artists spoke out in his support. Musician and activist, Sting even said that the industry is now in a battle against AI to protect their original work.

This is what the letter is protesting against - imitation, voice theft, and the slow slaughter of creativity.

Read more: No ban on AI-made music, but ethics matter: Spotify CEO

Some Musicians Are in Support of AI Music Tools

It's important to note that not every artist is against the use of AI in the music industry. Electronic artist Grimes and DJ David Guetta are some of the few ones defending the rise of AI songs.

Grimes went a step ahead and told her fans that they could use her voice to create AI music without worrying about penalties. If the song makes any money, she'll happily split the royalties with them.

For now, it's hard to say if the letter will fetch the desired results but it's still a significant move, especially considering that some of the biggest names in the music industry have supported the protest.

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