[iamben]

I posted this the other day. Absolutely terrible, IMO. A minor artist can take millions from an artist who releases a song with a passing resemblance. You can hear similarities in SO many songs. And SO many songs are inspired by others - great art is full of inspiration.

I dread where this ends up.

[aaronarduino]

This sort of feels like the start of the music business's version of patent trolls. I think this verdict devalues music and hampers creativity.

[freehunter]

New business model: have an AI generate every chord progression in every tempo, release the "songs" on your own label, and sue everyone who releases a song after you.

[Glyptodon]

I've always wondered if someone could copyright strike most of YouTube by having a channel filled with permutations of various sorts of ambient background noise.

[mhh__]

I think this is already happening.

I could be wrong but I vaguely remember something along those lines

[applecrazy]

On a similar note, a video with ten hours of static was subject to 5 copyright notices: https://www.eff.org/takedowns/ten-hours-static-gets-five-cop...

[dmix]

DMCA is a great success!

[lostphilosopher]

Pattern Trolls

[auto]

Slightly ironically an awesome band name.

[sitkack]

A Moiré Monsters - For the Love of Money.

[froindt]

Unfortunately you'd be opening yourself up to lawsuits for any of your songs that have a passing resemblance to existing songs, since after all, you've created every chord progression and tempo!

Maybe if you keep a low profile and insisted on NDA's for settlements, you wouldn't get sued as much for "stealing" from every piece of music made prior to your [Mega Album] dropping. I'd also recommend getting the copyright registered, but remaining out of every music database you possibly could, to enhance the obscurity of it all.

Also, if you know someone is infringing on your work and you don't actively pursue it, you could lose your rights to the copyright, so you need to find a cabin in the woods to lay low for awhile until you're ready to sue everyone in existence.

[Corrado]

Nah, just settle out of court for a percentage of the earnings of your "song". So, you get sued for one of your "songs" and they get 2.3% of your profits. Problem is that "song" has only earned you $0.000001.

[wrs]

You’d need to show some likelihood of the defendant hearing the music they’re allegedly copying, though — and I sure wouldn’t listen to the channel you’re proposing!

[greiskul]

Independent Creation is not covered by copyright I believe.

[trevyn]

Is there a legal counter to this? Frivolous copyrighting?

[freehunter]

There are tons of legal counters, almost any of which would be a slam dunk case for having the AI-generated company's copyright revoked and the company disbanded.

But patent trolls are smart enough to have blazed a trail where you sue small time record labels that can't afford to fight you in court and are willing to settle. Any fight that goes to court, you just dismiss the suit to avoid losing and setting a precedent.

[greiskul]

I think Independent Creation is a valid defense in copyright cases, unlike with patents.

[CalChris]

Defending patent trolls here for a moment but agreeing nonetheless.

Patent trolls have a higher bar since they at least need a patent which is somewhat difficult to get. You actually have to prosecute, that's the legal term, your patent application through the patent system and nowadays survive an inevitable IPR challenge from the FAANG companies. It takes a year or two and a bit of money.

A copyright by comparison is utterly effortless, meaning that this sort of suit is also utterly trivial. Not good.

[cmroanirgo]

It could actually lead to a musical renaissance, where composition would favour longer non-repeating segments, rather than a verse-chorus-middle8 kind of thing that is the staple of all pop music. It could lead to more music like the classical (in which some have no repeated segments, eg Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in Dm, or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata). Imagine a song that actually unfurled like a novel does...

[degenerate]

Especially with electronic music... simply use AI to release 20 million songs that nobody ever heard of, and copyright them all. Then just sit back and wait for a hot song to have similar-sounding segments and rake in the cash.

The songs don't even need to have lyrics or be enjoyable. They just need to cover enough possible sounds that can be made with modern electronic music tools.

[1290cc]

My thoughts exactly and I believe its always been the goal of rights holders to get to this point.

[js2]

Similar thing happened to Conan O'Brien:

https://variety.com/2019/biz/news/conan-obrien-jokes-lawsuit...

[kpU8efre7r]

Everything is a Remix

https://youtu.be/nJPERZDfyWc