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Sony Music revealed the extent of his battle against the counterfeits of the artificial intelligence of her artists by saying that she killed more than 75,000 examples of materials generated by AI with her biggest stars, including Harry Styles.
The company, one of the three largest labels in the music industry, gave the figure in a submission to a consultation of the British government on the rules of copyright that Sony The fears will worsen damage to the AI music industry.
Music leaders say that the counterfeits detected are probably only a fraction of the AI available online because the teams working on the problem must browse streaming services manually for them and demand their withdrawal.
The capacity of new AI software available free of charge to generate large quantities of convincing false equipment has become an important concern for companies in creative industries. Many fear that the free availability of the equipment is undermining their ability to earn money from legitimate recordings.
Sony declared in his submission to the consultation, seen by the Financial Times, that the recordings generated by the AI in the musical streaming services led to “direct commercial damage to legitimate recording artists, including British artists”.
The leaders fear that any weakening of British law on copyright will only increase this situation, in particular for small artists who have no large label to protect their interests.
A person familiar with Sony's efforts said that, for most labels, copied artists were their most popular – Harry Styles, Queen and Beyoncé, in the case of Sony.
Sony's submission said: “Sony Music unfortunately has a large experience of digital aftershocks.”
The British government has published proposals as part of a campaign which, according to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, aims to make the United Kingdom “the best place to start and develop an AI business”.
A proposal would allow AI companies to train their models for free for commercial purposes on a range of content in the United Kingdom – including music, cinema, books and newspapers. Copyright holders should request a specific choice to be exempt.
The leaders of the creative industries fear that the model requires creators a new administrative burden to constantly defend their online work.
The proposals triggered weeks of demonstrations of artists, musicians, filmmakers and media groups, all concerned that the proposed system would be heavy and expensive to use.
However, the ministers insisted that they are always open to different views by trying to go to a copyright position which could help stimulate the technological ambitions of the United Kingdom while protecting the creative industries.
Sony Music sought in its submission to highlight the advantages of the existing system, where the developers of the AI must pay copyright holders for access to content to train their models. Sony said that it was currently involved in “multiple negotiations” to dismiss its intellectual property to AI companies. He said government’s proposals were likely to “reduce, and not increase, license activity on the British market”.
Sony's response described the proposed changes “precipitated, unbalanced and irreversible”, arguing that copyright was “a right, a regulation”. The system was a “necessary societal reward” to create and invest in works that benefited society and enriched human life, he added.
The proposals “unnecessarily and unnecessarily” have distorted the market in favor of AI developers, said the company.
Sony has argued that proposals would damage a large part of the British economy, the United Kingdom, the third music market recorded in the world and the second largest exporter of music recorded in the world.
