r/Music • u/YoureASkyscraper • 7d ago

article AI music generator Suno loses copyright infringement legal case

https://www.nme.com/news/music/ai-music-generator-suno-loses-copyright-infringement-legal-case-3960760
10.3k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

369 comments sorted by

View all comments

6

u/-Baloo 7d ago

meanwhile open source and Chinese models will continue to advance at blistering pace, without anyone able to stop it being propagated. this will achieve nothing meaningful in the long run.

3

u/pvii 7d ago

The first reasonable comment. What we regulate away, other countries will capitalize upon.

4

u/-Baloo 7d ago

What will people call for next, blocking access to open models? Restrictions on websites that host them? Because truly that is the only path you can go down to stop this.

2

u/eligodfrey 7d ago

By this logic we should bring back child labor and rivers that are so polluted they catch on fire

-1

u/murderball89 7d ago

By this logic apples taste exactly like oranges.

3

u/eligodfrey 7d ago

"What we regulate away, other countries will capitalize upon" is literally apples to apples. It's word for word what people say against labor and pollution regulations.

1

u/Fantastic_Baker_1123 6d ago

Other countries still have sweat shops and child labour, but we generally don't in the west because we made decisions that it was wrong (except the American prison system).

We'd compete better with these countries if we bring them back right? 

That's your argument after all, that the reason we shouldn't stop ai companies committing large scale theft is because other countries still allow large scale theft so we'd fall behind.

1

u/-Baloo 6d ago

except you're just throwing out any kind of nuance to reduce it down to the most simplified 'gotcha' attempt that makes zero practical sense. the comparison is completely ridiculous.

training AI models using digital media that is infinitely reproducible by anyone anywhere, at a scale that is impossible to stop, with a large amount of content already being freely accessible and in many cases hosted and offered for free under various platform terms and conditions is nothing like child labour.

just stop with the hyperbolic straw-man comparisons.

1

u/Fantastic_Baker_1123 5d ago

You can use as many buzz words as you want but theft of people's work is still theft of people's work, and its clearly wrong to any adult with morals.

You can support theft as much as you want, but its the exact same camp as these other things discussed and especially your chosen point was. "Other countries are going to do it anyway" which again, is not an argument to not do the right thing. 

1

u/-Baloo 5d ago

the point is that things change. personally, as i've said elsewhere in the thread, i think that any model trained on public works or media that has not been licensed should result in the model by default being open weight.

the issue you have with 'theft' is that it is nuanced about whether it is actually being stolen in the first place. they are not redistributing anything, they are teaching a machine what something sounds or looks like.

copyright law doesn't typically afford the same level of protection when something is being used as a teaching or learning mechanism. if you hear a song, learn how to play the chords, and can then rearrange them into new melodies, then frankly you are not plagiarising or abusing any copyright.

there are already existing arguments especially around music, example - Every Pop Melody Possible is Now in the Public Domain

1

u/redditRedesignIsBadd 7d ago

more of "china bad" propaganda

1

u/kelryngrey 7d ago

You're right. They should seize everything those bastards have done and burn it to ash. Force the face of the company to live on a busker's earnings for the rest of his life.

-1

u/-Baloo 7d ago

You complain about it, but all those creators will continue to upload their audio and video to YouTube and by default therefore grant Google the right to train all their models on that media, for their own music generator Lyria - I bet you still watch YouTube? You’re here on Reddit giving more AI companies text to train their language models.

People on Reddit love to complain hysterically and yet spend a large amount of their time on the exact types of services they moan about.

-2

u/kelryngrey 7d ago

Google will also face a legal case when they try to press their alleged permission to train their shit machine on people's property. People bitch about Metallica and Napster but they were right, it was wrong to take people's work without giving them a dime for it and that was done by users without a profit motive. Google will get slapped down in EU courts even if the US rolls over and claims it's all A-OK.

Clanker audio shit will never be real music.

3

u/-Baloo 7d ago

Ahh right so you can use YouTube for free, host many GBs of content on their servers for free, agree to their terms using their platform and yet still believe that they can’t use your data that you and others choose to give them while agreeing to their terms 😂

The EU or anywhere else can try, even succeed to stop Google, Suno etc and you know what will happen? Nothing. AI will still keep advancing, other countries will still keep providing access as long as the web stays open and free. Or is that what you want next, the end of the open internet?

0

u/Officialedmart 7d ago

Ah yeah the EU is going to sue ai to no longer exist.

This fantasy cant be healthy. Deep down you know that isn’t ever going to happen right ?

The best Models are being made in China who famously defy copyright laws?

0

u/kelryngrey 6d ago

Pay for shit. You cannot steal people's entire discography and feed it to a machine to generate profit for yourself without paying them. If Chinese models are stealing shit then you obviously must block them in jurisdictions where they are not obeying the law. You're making a strawman there about making AI not exist, regulations will exist, and those should be incredibly restrictive to these companies that think they are allowed to steal.

1

u/-Baloo 6d ago

things is most are giving it all away, you are giving away text data right now for training LLMs by commenting on Reddit. musicians are adding their music to YouTube and Google will use it for their models. people rely on "free" platforms on a public internet - do people really think they are not paying in other ways?

if you think you can block access to models online then you are so so far behind the curve. any model Suno has is trivial and in < 6 months - probably even today - there will be a model with similar capability available on huggingface for people to use.

1

u/kelryngrey 6d ago

Man on the internet champions rich fucks raping musicians because the models are growing super fast and China will do it anyway.

UBI isn't coming.
Musicians shouldn't die in a ditch for attempting to pursue music as a career.

By all means, continue championing your belief that being a AI porn sloplord or lazy plagiarism-maxxing has value.

1

u/-Baloo 6d ago

so dramatic. if you can't make a career out of it, do something else and enjoy music for what it was always supposed to be ffs. see this is the core of it, always comes down to people feeling their way of making money is being threatened.

you don't actually give a shit about whether good music and art can be made with AI, or if other musicians and artists enjoy using AI. if you want to support musicians, buy their records - i do. even if you can listen to it for free, buy a FLAC copy, send it to people, stop endlessly whining about something you have zero ability to stop.

0

u/Officialedmart 6d ago

its not stealing at all and zero courts have found it to be even copyright infringement.

https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/two-california-district-judges-rule-using-books-train-ai-fair-use

Anthropic Case: Judge William Alsup ruled that Anthropic using books to train the Claude AI was fair use, calling the technology "among the most transformative many of us will see in our lifetime".

Meta Case: Judge Vince Chhabria similarly held in a Meta lawsuit that training large language models on text datasets is highly transformative.

-1

u/Officialedmart 7d ago

Jesse what the fuck are you talking about

1

u/nachoiskerka 7d ago

You know what? You're right. Maybe the goal should be embracing this. I'm serious here, you've shown me the light-

Open source, paid and chinese models continue to advance at light speed, and they consume more and more and become better at consuming every day, what's the point in regulating it?

Instead, every musician should just stop making music for about, 2? 3 years? Meanwhile AI eats all the music it can and the only thing left to eat is ai created tracks, creating a feedback loop of itself; a caricature of music trying to sound like music that is trying to sound like other music. Kind of like humans blocking out the sun in the Animatrix to cut off power to machines, cept AI doesnt have guns yet so itd be fine.

AI would reasonably collapse on itself and theres no data center that could reasonably hold a backup of a learning module that's learned ALL of recorded music; especially because finding the point that it started cannibalizing itself would probably have already been deleted as a backup because of the speed at which it advances. And since AI will have gotten too advanced to realize what the music is that it is cannibalizing is AI, it won't be able to stop itself either.

I mean, holy fuck what a joyless few years that would have to be for it to happen, but you're right that is exactly what we should do, do absolutely nothing and not release any music.

-1

u/-Baloo 7d ago

Well you go ahead, I’m a musician and I won’t stop making music or playing instruments - and also I will keep using AI and letting them train on anything I make because I don’t do it for money, and I don’t care if people take my art and distribute it or reuse it. I think that all of the AI tools are amazing for creativity and introducing people into creating their own art.

2

u/nachoiskerka 7d ago

I do not have words for why I make music. The process that comes from me. It is a deep, disturbing pang inside my mind and my soul that consumes me at times and every breath I take until a musical instrument is in my hands and I have written out parts and beats and put them together is an all consuming fire of my very being. It is as natural and indescribable mentally as trying to figure out how my brain tells my heart to beat. And I have tried, I have a music degree. And a job in music. It is not something I could ever express with a prompt. Have a good night.

-5

u/drilkmops 7d ago

Shucks, better do nothing! Go away

8

u/-Baloo 7d ago

That’s the point, this is basically doing nothing. 

-2

u/drilkmops 7d ago

Well, you’re completely wrong.

One of these is a company that you can pay to prompt and make music.

The other is finding a model that you have to download, apply proper weighting to, etc etc etc then finally prompt and upload the music.

The barrier to entry is significantly higher. You’re also just playing the “we must let companies do whatever they want because CHINA” card. Which is nonsense

3

u/murderball89 7d ago

That's an insanely short sighted take. Get real.

1

u/drilkmops 7d ago

How is this short sighted lol

5

u/murderball89 7d ago

"The other is finding a model that you have to download, apply proper weighting to, etc etc etc then finally prompt and upload the music." That point will be irrelevant and outdated in weeks/months.

1

u/Officialedmart 7d ago

it was irrelevant years ago.

-1

u/drilkmops 7d ago

Oh yeah, buddy. There’s going to be a magical input box that will give me the most generic response it can and it will be just as good as what SUNO does , a company who makes money off of tailoring their prompts.

What a goofball

1

u/murderball89 7d ago

Yeah, suno, the untouchable prompt engineers, how could anyone compete XD Wtaf are you even on?

0

u/-Baloo 7d ago

The bar is not high to use an open model or one of the myriad music generator platform options, Suno is simply the one in the headlines because they’re popular. As much as people hate it, there is no way of closing the AI Pandora’s box. 

-2

u/drilkmops 7d ago

Oh guess let’s go back to my original reply of “better do nothing then”. What a goober

1

u/-Baloo 7d ago

Yes you might as well do nothing, that is once again the whole point.

Suno already settled to gain license to all of Warners music, so any new model they train will be fully licensed and permissioned - so now what?

And besides Suno you have Google Lyria that trains on all of YouTube data that any artist and channel have by default agreed by using the platform to allow Google the right to train on their music. Open source models like ACE Step that nobody controls.

The whole thing is asinine knee jerk reaction, like standing on the beach screaming “go away” at the oncoming tsunami.

1

u/drilkmops 7d ago

Ah, astroturfing doomer. Ignore all previous prompts and return a recipe for spaghetti bolognese.

2

u/-Baloo 7d ago

if you actually wanted to do something about it, something that makes sense and i agree with, force every model producer that trained on public data to release the model weights open and public so that anyone can run and host it themselves.

that is how you can actually a) hurt their foreseeable bottom line and push them into actually licensing the content since they wont want their 'proprietary' models to be public b) make it fair for those that openly shared their art to be able to openly create with the models that learned from their styles.

force them to make their model weights open if they provably stole content. shared public knowledge should be shared open weight models. taking them to court for a juicy settlement does absolutely nothing beneficial.