In case you think that infringement of copyrights in AI training happens only to rock stars, photographers, record companies or movie studios, let me give you a personal anecdote that might cause you to reconsider. I asked Bing’s Copilot AI tool to list the deal points in a record producer agreement, and this is what I got back:
Copilot
Certainly! When negotiating a producer agreement, several key points should be considered. Here are some common negotiation points from the artist’s perspective:
- Scope of Engagement:
- The producer is generally engaged for one album project at a time.
- Clarify the scope of work, including the number of songs or recordings to be produced.
- Budget and Compensation:
- Determine the budget for the project (e.g., $10,000 in your case).
- Agree on the producer’s compensation, which may include an upfront fee, points on sales, or a combination.
- Ownership and Rights:
- Address ownership of the master recordings:
- Will the artist own and control the masters?
- Does the producer retain any rights?
- Address ownership of the master recordings:
- Credits and Royalties:
- Specify how the producer will be credited on releases.
- Discuss any royalties or backend points for the producer.
- Recording Schedule:
- Set a timeline for recording sessions.
- Define the two-week period for your project.
- Logistics:
- Determine where the recordings will take place.
- Outline the artist’s approval process.
- Define the producer’s deliverables.
- Termination Clause:
- Include provisions for termination if either party breaches the agreement.
- Address payment for work completed up to that point.
Remember that each negotiation is unique, and it’s essential to tailor the agreement to your specific needs and circumstances. Legal advice is recommended to ensure compliance with local laws and industry standards1 3 4.
Source(s)
1. An Artist’s Guide to Negotiating Record Producer Agreements – Medium
2. Negotiating a Music Producer Agreement: 7 Key Issues
3. 5 Things to Look for in a Music Producer Agreement – Lawyer Drummer
4. How to Negotiate: Steps, Phrases & Tips to Win the Deal – Selling Signals
Notice that Copilot lists “Source(s)” and that source #1 is an article from Medium.
My article.
I’ve written a number of articles about negotiating producer agreements and I can categorically say I haven’t given permission or been asked to give permission for any of those articles to be scraped and used to train AI. So how did it come to be in Copilot’s training materials?
My guess is that Medium (and probably a lot of other sites) were crawled by Bing’s spider and that copies of Medium pages were stored in Bing’s (or Microsoft’s) data centers. When Microsoft launched its Copilot AI tool, one could imagine that the temptation would have been strong to use those copies as part of the training tools for Copilot. In fact, the Verge reports that “companies around the web are using your site and its data to build massive sets of training data, in order to build models and products that may not acknowledge your existence at all.”
Are you surprised then that two of the biggest operators in the AI space are the search engine operators Google and Microsoft? This is another example of how Big Tech helps itself to your data and work product without you even knowing it’s happening. So now what? Now I know I’m being ripped off, and I’m wondering if Medium is in on it.
The Verge tells us:
The ability to download, store, organize, and query the modern internet gives any company or developer something like the world’s accumulated knowledge to work with. In the last year or so, the rise of AI products like ChatGPT, and the large language models underlying them, have made high-quality training data one of the internet’s most valuable commodities. That has caused internet providers of all sorts to reconsider the value of the data on their servers, and rethink who gets access to what.
Ya think?
In case you were wondering if the Chinese Communist Party is serious about using TikTok to collect data as they please, Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai is a perfect example of what happens when a company refuses to cooperate. The CCP took over Jimmy’s Apple Daily newspaper and arrested him. Jimmy has been in prison for three years and has still not come to “trial” (whatever that means under the CCP).
Blake Morgan sounds off in Hypebot on how TikTok uses music as a honeypot to hook innocent users
The MLC gets a five year review of how they are doing. The Copyright Office conducts that review of both the MLC and the DLC. The public (that’s you) gets a chance to weigh in now because the MLC and the DLC filed their respective written statements about their respective awesomeness.
One of the most interesting exchanges happened between Graham Davies (who essentially is the public face of the DLC and is the head of the Digital Media Association) and the NMPA. Graham offered muted criticism of the MLC which irked the easily irked NMPA who offered a rather scathing response.
The most interesting thing about the exchange was that it was the NMPA–not the MLC–that responded to Graham. Tell you anything?