[zaptrem]

> I have made plenty of money busking on the street

That's why I specified mass market. However, given a choice between literally being on the street and working with a record label I'd probably choose the label, though I don't know about others.

> pay them for the right to reproduce

My point is learning patterns/styles does not equate to reproducing their recordings. If someone wants to listen to "Hey Jude" they cannot do so with our model, they must go to Spotify. There are cases where models from our competitors were trained for too long on too small a dataset and were able to recite songs, but that's a bug they admit is wrong and are fighting against, not a feature.

> in most cases it wasn't theirs to begin with

In most cases they did not invent the chord progression they're using or instruments they're playing or style they're using or even the lyrical themes they're singing. All are based on what came before and the musicians that come after them are able to use any new knowledge they contribute freely. It's all a fork of a fork of a fork of a fork, and if everyone along the line decided they were entitled to a cut we'd have disaster.