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Sony AI Music

Sony Says It Has Already Taken Down More Than 75,000 AI Deepfake Songs (gizmodo.com) 33

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
Sony has removed more than 75,000 AI-generated deepfake songs mimicking artists including Harry Styles and Beyonce from online platforms, the company revealed in a submission to the UK government, adding this likely represents just a fraction of fake songs circulating online.

The proliferation of these unauthorized AI replicas has caused "direct commercial harm to legitimate recording artists, including UK artists," Sony stated. The company's intervention comes as Britain considers new copyright legislation that would permit AI companies to train models using artist material, a proposal that would require rights holders to opt out rather than requiring permission.
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Sony Says It Has Already Taken Down More Than 75,000 AI Deepfake Songs More

Sony Says It Has Already Taken Down More Than 75,000 AI Deepfake Songs

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  • Get out your popcorn and lawnchairs. It's gonna be a corporate battle!

  • Under What Authority? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Monday March 10, 2025 @01:57PM (#65223613) Homepage Journal
    Under what authority did Sony pull the LLM slop? While the slop may sound similar to Sony's works, they are not Sony's works, Sony holds no copyright over them; therefore, DMCA takedowns are not allowed.

    If they claim it's an infringing derivative work, that claim is merely a claim until litigated in court and, again, DMCA is out of scope.

    If, however, Sony is claiming that copyright in a work survives getting pulverized through an LLM, then the entire "AI industry" is in deep, deep trouble.

    Honestly not sure what/who to be rooting for here....

    • If this was purely between Sony and say Spotify/Apple/Google and other services then no legal authority needed, could be just "Sony is a big client of our platforms and if they have requests we think are legit we honor them"

      It's likely not in the best interests of a music streaming platform to have these songs on their system, both for the customers (Now i gotta dig through a dozen fakes to find the real song?) or their real clients the publishers like Sony who could just say "Fine, we'll pull all our artis

    • Under what authority did Sony pull the LLM slop? While the slop may sound similar to Sony's works, they are not Sony's works, Sony holds no copyright over them

      You forgot about trademark law.

      • Sure. If the songs were claiming to actually be from those artists. But they didn't mention that as a basis for the takedown.

        • I don't know WHAT they mentioned because if you read TFA and then try to follow the link to the original story about their statement you wind up at a paywall on ft.com.

          If you have any information on what's in that article or have sourced the original PR let us know, otherwise all either of us can do is guess.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      "Sony is claiming that copyright in a work survives getting pulverized through an LLM, then the entire "AI industry" is in deep, deep trouble."

      Yeah because the shitty lossy compression that is the AI weights is still the format shifted training data. That's why I say we should exempt AI training from ALL copyright and intellectual property rights AND exempt the output as well. Further we should make the company that trains the AI completely immune from liability for anything done with it.

      In exchange they ha

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      The entire "AI" industry is in deep trouble already.

      Let me explain something from personal experience. Nearly 100% of "AI covers" (basically switching the vocalist to someone who never sung the song) is done via RVC. RVC does not change someone's accent, merely the pitch, so it's basically a "super accurate autotune" against another singer's voice. However the backing audio is still the original audio. So music authors can still claim a mechanical infringement just for the cover existing if no payment was m

    • The whole internet is in trouble. The open web is under siege by Hollywood and news publishers over AI. It's not a new battle, it's the same fight that pirates have fought for many years. Greed. You know these very same people will want AI priced out of reach for the average person so that they can hoard the power and wealth for themselves. We're already experiencing a roman catholic empire of sorts, and it will only. get worse as Ai replaces jobs and people become more and more dependent on the government

  • The company's intervention comes as Britain considers new copyright legislation that would permit AI companies to train models using artist material, a proposal that would require rights holders to opt out rather than requiring permission.

    Seriously? And what about indie artists and hobbyists that sometimes make a penny per song? How do you opt-out? Is it some legal fee menagerie or a series of ever evolving hoops that you could never clear without a legal team constantly watching for the next update in terms? In all honesty, it feels very much like a carte blanche "go ahead and do whatever you want" for the AI companies.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      I think that is fine so long as the output can't be copyrighted and the AI companies have to release the models so anyone can use them... the point of copyright isn't to enable people to make money, the point of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce content... if copyright starts resulting in LESS or inferior art the answer is to get rid of it.

      • I think that is fine so long as the output can't be copyrighted and the AI companies have to release the models so anyone can use them... the point of copyright isn't to enable people to make money, the point of copyright is to provide an incentive to produce content... if copyright starts resulting in LESS or inferior art the answer is to get rid of it.

        Funny, as a producer of "art" (as a hobbyist), it sounds vaguely to me like saying, "We're going to send people to steal all your shit, unless you jump through our ill-defined hoops and opt-out."

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Shaitan ( 22585 )

          It feels that way because we've had an artificial concept of copyright for a very long time and people are often selfish/controlling.

          The only thing that is yours when you produce a piece of art is the actual object you made.. assuming nobody paid you to make it and you made it out of your own stuff.

          We don't own ideas, including artistic expressions, and with billions of people around they aren't novel.

          Expressed ideas become the property of everyone who sees the expression. We all copy them instantly and we

  • What makes a song a song that mimics somebody? What if it is a similar real voice? What if it is a a similar generated voice? How similar should it be to qualify for removal?

    • With those numbers it's almost guaranteed there is a real artist with a voice similar to Beyonce operating in the same genre who got taken down.

      But she can''t afford to sue Sony so the Corporations win again.

    • The difference between infringement and a cover song comes down to details and if you went through the process to clear it.

      You can claim fair use but it could go to court and there is precedent, famously the Queen/Bowie v. Vanilla Ice [gwu.edu] where he famously said "We add the little tss at the end, that makes it different" .

      Also the case of The Verve versus the Rolling Stones for Bittersweet symphony [bbc.com], and these cases were just over samples, much less entire lyrics or melodies

      • I read it the way that the song is different, it is the artist who sounds similar to somebody famous.

        • Interesting, I suppose if it's known that there isn't an actual human who happens to sound like a similar artist but it's an artificial generation it probably does not carry the same protections a person would and the artists likeness protections kick in.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      Cause that's not what's happening.

      Input song -> split into Vocal and Backing track -> vocal track fed through RVC to change the "singer" without changing anything about the singing quality -> changed Vocal and Backing track merged once again

      There is no "creativity" going on at all. It's actually worse than a karaoke version, because at least karaoke is done with a crappy mechanically-licensed cover of the backing audio. These "AI" covers are actually the original singing audio pushed through an Aut

  • Download a copy before Sony nukes it.

  • What if instead, they release the data required to make the deepfake, and also the code required to make the deepfake?

  • ... at the days when all they had to worry about was copying on physical media. Looking back fondly.

    [SHRUG] I really could not care less.

  • Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)

    by The Grim Reefer ( 1162755 ) on Monday March 10, 2025 @03:54PM (#65223897)

    I guess Greta Van Fleet would be in trouble if they released their first album now. Red Rider's song "Lunitic Fringe" would be as well. People think it's Pink Floyd. Steelers Wheel song, "stuck in the middle" sounds like a Beatles song to many. The Hollies song, "long cool women in a black dress" sounds like CCR. Speaking of CCR, John Fogerty would have lost the lawsuit against him for sounding like CCR I suppose too

    Most music is derivative of music before it. Chuck Berry ripped off Rosetta Tharpe's sound. Tons of power ballads from the 70's and 80's used chords progressions from classical music. Next record companies will go after rappers from the 70's and 80s for using AC/DC vinyl records for scratching.

    • Next record companies will go after rappers from the 70's and 80s for using AC/DC vinyl records for scratching.

      That's actually a pretty thoroughly litigated area, so the guidelines are well understood. I don't recall what the numbers are, but there are well-established guidelines for sampling, and IIRC, scratching doesn't count at all as long as the rhythm and tune are unrecognizable, which is the case with most scratching techniques.

  • Blurred Lines sounds similar to Got to Give it Up, in some specific ways, but it's a completely separate and new song. The vibe isn't the same. The singing is different, but they lost the case. I'll never pay for music again, unless it's over Patreon or for a concert. Fuck these companies.

  • Has Sony ever been on the right side of an issue relating to openness and rights.

    This shouldn't be limited to music or voices. Nothing should be protected IP when it comes to feeding AI and nothing that comes out of AI should qualify for IP protections... at least so long as the full and complete weights from uncensored training and functional framework along with training data are provided by the party who trains the AI in a free and open fashion. Such a model should be considered something of a common car

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