thetrichordist

Why Artists Are Striking Spotify Over Daniel Ek’s AI-Offensive Weapons Bet—and Why It Matters for AI Deals

Over the summer, a growing group of artists began pulling their catalogs from Spotify—not over miserable and Dickensian-level royalties alone, but over Spotify CEO Daniel Ek’s vast investment in Helsing, a European weapons company. Helsing builds AI-enabled offensive weapons systems that skirt international human rights law, specifically Article 36 of the Geneva Conventions. Deerhoof helped kick off the current wave; other artists (including Xiu Xiu, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Hotline TNT, The Mynabirds, WU LYF, Kadhja Bonet, and Young Widows) have followed or announced plans to do so.

What is Helsing—and what does it build?

Helsing is a Munich-based defense-tech firm founded in 2021. It began with AI software for perception, decision-support, and electronic warfare, and has expanded into hardware. The company markets the HX‑2 “AI strike drone,” described as a software‑defined loitering munition intended to engage artillery and armored targets at significant range—and kill people. It emphasizes resilience to electronic warfare, swarm/networked tactics via its Altra recon‑strike platform, and a human in/on the loop for critical decisions, and that limited role for humans in killing other humans is where it runs into Geneva Convention issues. Trust me, they know this.

Beyond drones, Helsing provides AI electronic‑warfare upgrades for Germany’s Eurofighter EK (with Saab), and has been contracted to supply AI software for Europe’s Future Combat Air System (FCAS). Public briefings and reporting indicate an active role supporting Ukraine since 2022, and a growing UK footprint linked to defense modernization initiatives. In 2025, Ek’s investment firm led a major funding round that valued Helsing in the multibillion‑euro range alongside contracts in the UK, Germany, and Sweden.

So let’s be clear—Helsing is not making some super tourniquet or AI medical device that has a dual use in civilian and military applications. This is Masters of War stuff. Which, for Mr. Ek’s benefit, is a song.

Why artists care

For these artists, the issue isn’t abstract: they see a direct line between Spotify‑generated wealth and AI‑enabled lethality, especially as Helsing moves from software into weaponized autonomy at scale. That ethical conflict is why exit statements explicitly connect Dickensian streaming economics and streamshare thresholds to military investment choices. In fact, it remains to be seen whether Spotify itself is using its AI products and the tech and data behind them for Helsing’s weapons applications.

How many artists have left?

There’s no official tally. Reporting describes a wave of departures and names specific acts. The list continues to evolve as more artists reassess their positions.

The financial impact—on Spotify vs. on artists

For Spotify, a handful of indie exits barely moves the needle. The reason is the pro‑rata or “streamshare” payout model: each rightsholder’s share is proportional to total streams, not a fixed per‑stream rate except if you’re “lucky” enough to get a “greater of” formula. Remove a small catalog and its share simply reallocates to others. For artists, leaving can be meaningful—some replace streams with direct sales (Bandcamp, vinyl, fan campaigns) and often report higher revenue per fan. But at platform scale, the macro‑economics barely budge.

Of course because of Spotify’s tying relationships with talent buyers for venues (explicit or implicit) not being on Spotify can be the kiss of death for a new artist competing for a Wednesday night at a local venue when the venue checks your Spotify stats.

Why this is a cautionary tale for AI labs

Two practices make artist exits feel symbolically loud but structurally quiet—and they’re exactly what frontier AI should avoid:

1) Revenue‑share pools with opaque rules. Pro‑rata “streamshare” pushes smaller players toward zero; any exit just enriches whoever remains. AI platforms contemplating rev‑share training or retrieval deals should learn from this: user‑centric or usage‑metered deals with transparent accounting are more legible than giant, shifting pools.

2) NDA‑sealed terms. The streaming era normalized NDAs that bury rates and conditions. If AI deals copy that playbook—confidential blacklists, secret style‑prompt fees, unpublished audit rights—contributors will see protest as the only lever. Transparency beats backlash.

3) Weapons Related Use Cases for AI. We all know that the frontier labs like Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others are all also competing like trained seals for contracts from the Department of War. They use the same technology trained on culture ripped off from artists to kill people for money.

A clearer picture of Helsing’s products and customers

• HX‑2 AI Strike Drone: beyond‑line‑of‑sight strike profile, on‑board target re‑identification, EW‑resilient, swarm‑capable via Altra; multiple payload options; human in/on the loop.
• Eurofighter EK (Germany): with Saab, AI‑enabled electronic‑warfare upgrade for Luftwaffe Eurofighters oriented to SEAD/DEAD roles.
• FCAS AI Backbone (Europe): software/AI layer for the next‑generation air combat system under European procurement.
• UK footprint: framework contracting in the UK defense ecosystem, tied to strike/targeting modernization efforts.
• Ukraine: public reporting indicates delivery of strike drones; company statements reference activity supporting Ukraine since 2022.

The bigger cultural point

Whether you applaud or oppose war tech, the ethical through‑line in these protests is consistent: creators don’t want their work—or the wealth it generates—financing AI (especially autonomous) weaponry. Because the platform’s pro‑rata economics make individual exits financially quiet, the conflict migrates into public signaling and brand pressure.

What would a better model look like for AI?

• Opt‑in, auditable deals for creative inputs to AI models (training and RAG) with clear unit economics and published baseline terms.
• User‑centric or usage‑metered payouts (by contributor, by model, by retrieval) instead of a single, shifting revenue pool.
• Public registries and audit logs so participants can verify where money comes from and where it goes.
• No gag clauses on baseline rates or audit rights.

The strike against Spotify is about values as much as value. Ek’s bet on Helsing—drones, electronic warfare, autonomous weapons—makes those values impossible for some artists to ignore. Thanks to the pro‑rata royalty machine, the exits won’t dent Spotify’s bottom line—but they should warn AI platforms against repeating the same opaque rev‑shares and NDAs that leave creators feeling voiceless in streaming.

September 12, 2025 by thetrichordist

If you got one of these emails from Spotify, you might be interested

Spotify failed to consult any of the people who drive fans to the data abattoir: the musicians, artists, podcasters and authors.

Spotify has quietly tightened the screws on AI this summer—while simultaneously clarifying how it uses your data to power its own machine‑learning features. For artists, rightsholders, developers, and policy folks, the combination matters: Spotify is making it harder for outsiders to train models on Spotify data, even as it codifies its own first‑party uses like AI DJ and personalized playlists.

Spotify is drawing a bright line: no training models on Spotify; yes to Spotify training its own. If you’re an artist or developer, that means stronger contractual leverage against third‑party scrapers—but also a need to sharpen your own data‑governance and licensing posture. Expect other platforms in music and podcasting to follow suit—and for regulators to ask tougher questions about how platform ML features are audited, licensed, and accounted for.

Below is a plain‑English (hopefully) breakdown of what changed, what’s new or newly explicit, and the practical implications for different stakeholders.

Explicit ban on using Spotify to train AI models (third parties).

Spotify’s User Guidelines now flatly prohibit “crawling” or “scraping” the service and, crucially, “using any part of the Services or Content to train a machine learning or AI model.” That’s a categorical no for bots and bulk data slurps. The Developer Policy mirrors this: apps using the Web API may not “use the Spotify Platform or any Spotify Content to train a machine learning or AI model.” In short: if your product ingests Spotify data, you’re in violation of the rules and risk enforcement and access revocation.

Spotify’s own AI/ML uses are clearer—and broad.

The Privacy Policy (effective August 27, 2025) spells out that Spotify uses personal data to “develop and train” algorithmic and machine‑learning models to improve recommendations, build AI features (like AI DJ and AI playlists), and enforce rules. That legal basis is framed largely as Spotify’s “legitimate interests.” Translation: your usage, voice, and other data can feed Spotify’s own models.

The user content license is very broad.

If you post “User Content” (messages, playlist titles, descriptions, images, comments, etc.), you grant Spotify a worldwide, sublicensable, transferable, royalty‑free, irrevocable license to reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display that content in any medium. That’s standard platform drafting these days, but the scope—including derivative works—has AI‑era consequences for anything you upload to or create within Spotify’s ecosystem (e.g., playlist titles, cover images, comments).

Anti‑manipulation and anti‑automation rules are baked in.

The User Guidelines and Developer Policy double down on bans against bots, artificial streaming, and traffic manipulation. If you’re building tools that touch the Spotify graph, treat “no automated collection, no metric‑gaming, no derived profiling” as table stakes—or risk enforcement, up to termination of access.

Data‑sharing signals to rightsholders continue.

Spotify says it can provide pseudonymized listening data to rightsholders under existing deals. That’s not new, but in the ML context it underscores why parallel data flows to third parties are tightly controlled: Spotify wants to be the gateway for data, not the faucet you can plumb yourself.

What this means by role:

• Artists & labels: The AI‑training ban gives you a clear contractual hook against services that scrape Spotify to build recommenders, clones, or vocal/style models. Document violations (timestamps, IPs, payloads) and send notices citing the User Guidelines and Developer Policy. Meanwhile, assume your own usage and voice interactions can be used to improve Spotify’s models—something to consider for privacy reviews and internal policies.

• Publishers and collecting societies: The combination of “no third‑party training” + “first‑party ML training” is a policy trend to watch across platforms. It raises familiar questions about derivative data, model outputs, and whether platform machine learning features create new accounting categories—or require new audit rights—in future licenses.

• Policymakers: Read this as another brick in the “closed data/open model risk” wall. Platforms restrict external extraction while expanding internal model claims. That asymmetry will shape future debates over data‑access mandates, competition remedies, and model‑audit rights—especially where platform ML features may substitute for third‑party discovery tools.

Practical to‑dos

1) For rights owners: Add explicit “no platform‑sourced training” language in your vendor, distributor, or analytics contracts. Track and log known scrapers and third‑party tools that might be training off Spotify. Consider notice letters that cite the specific clauses.

2) For privacy and legal teams: Update DPIAs and data maps. Spotify’s Privacy Policy identifies “User Data,” “Usage Data,” “Voice Data,” “Message Data,” and more as inputs for ML features under legitimate interest. If you rely on Spotify data for compliance reports, make sure you’re only using permitted, properly aggregated outputs—not raw exports.

3) For users: I will be posting a guideline to how to clawback your data. I may not hit everything so always open to suggestions about whatever else that others spot.

Spotify’s terms give it very broad rights to collect, combine, and use your data (listening history, device/ads data, voice features, third-party signals) for personalization, ads, and product R&D. They also take a broad license to user content you upload (e.g., playlist art).

Key cites

• User Guidelines: prohibition on scraping and on “using any part of the Services or Content to train a machine learning or AI model.”

• Developer Policy (effective May 15, 2025): “Do not use the Spotify Platform or any Spotify Content to train a machine learning or AI model…” Also bans analyzing Spotify content to create new/derived listenership metrics or user profiles for ad targeting.

• Privacy Policy (effective Aug. 27, 2025): Spotify uses personal data to “develop and train” ML models for recommendations, AI DJ/AI playlists, and rule‑enforcement, primarily under “legitimate interests.”

• Terms & Conditions of Use: very broad license to Spotify for any “User Content” you post, including the right to “create derivative works” and to use content by any means and media worldwide, irrevocably.

[A version of this post first appeared on MusicTechPolicy]

September 3, 2025 by thetrichordist

Artist Rights Institute and Abby North Press Copyright Office for Accountability in MLC Redesignation

On August 22, 2025, the Artist Rights Institute, together with music publisher Abby North, filed joint comments with the U.S. Copyright Office as part of the agency’s ongoing five-year redesignation review of the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC). The comments memorialize an ex parte meeting with senior Copyright Office attorneys and stress that this redesignation process must not become a perfunctory exercise. Instead, it should serve as a meaningful opportunity to hold the MLC accountable for its statutory obligations.

The filing underscores that Congress deliberately gave the Copyright Office broad regulatory oversight because the MLC was established as an experiment under the Music Modernization Act. After five years, the evidence points to serious deficiencies: continuing metadata errors, lack of access to bulk matching tools for rightsholders, opaque governance decisions, and unresolved questions about audits and litigation. Most strikingly, the MLC’s unilateral investment of unmatched royalties in the securities markets—totaling more than $1.2 billion on the MLC’s latest tax return—raises concerns about statutory authority and fiduciary duties.

The joint comments argue that interest on unmatched royalties was intended by Congress as a penalty on licensees for failure to timely match and pay, not as a windfall for the MLC itself. By adopting an unauthorized investment policy, the MLC risks stepping outside its mandate, exposing its officers and directors to fiduciary liability.

To restore transparency and trust, the Institute and Ms. North propose clear regulatory reforms: conditional redesignation tied to performance benchmarks, publication of vendor match rates, real-time disclosure of governance actions, clarified metadata responsibilities, and monthly reporting of investment holdings. These reforms would align the U.S. system with international best practices and protect songwriters whose livelihoods depend on fair and accurate royalty distributions.

Read the full joint comments below.

Artist-Rights-Institute-to-USCO-1-Aug-22-2025 Download

August 27, 2025 by thetrichordist

Spotify’s Royalty Threshold Is Conscious Parallelism Reshaping the Music Business—But Not in a Good Way

by Chris Castle

Spotify recently rolled out a quiet but seismic change to its royalty system: if a track doesn’t get at least 1,000 streams in a 12-month period, it earns no royalties. Zero. The company claims this policy is about reducing “fraud” and redirecting money to “working artists,” but behind that PR gloss is a shift that disproportionately harms independent musicians and smaller rightsholders.

Let’s be clear—this isn’t just about removing noise from the system. It’s about redrawing the map of who gets paid in the streaming economy and who gets pushed out.

The Hidden Impact on Artists

At first glance, 1,000 streams might sound like a modest hurdle. But in the aggregate, this threshold excludes potentially millions of tracks from ever receiving a dime—even though Spotify continues to profit from their presence through ad revenue and user engagement. It’s easy to assume the affected tracks belong only to DIY artists or obscure creators. But that’s not necessarily true.

Spotify’s royalty model is track-focused, not artist-focused. You could have a single that racks up a million streams while the rest of the album struggles to clear a few hundred. Those lower-performing tracks—despite being part of a cohesive release—won’t earn a cent. Left to its own devices, the platform favors individual track performance over albums or an artist’s entire catalog. And that has sweeping implications not only for how artists are paid, but for how music is created, released, and valued in the streaming age.

It’s Not About Growing the Pie—It’s About Cutting Out the Bottom

The most revealing part of this policy isn’t what it claims to fix, but what it quietly avoids. Spotify is likely under enormous pressure—from major labels and rights holders—to raise the artist payouts. No matter how much Spotify denies the per-stream rate, there will always be a per-stream rate even if they pay a “stream share” to a label for the very simple reason that the label has to convert that revenue share into a per stream rate in order to allocate it to their several artists. That’s as simple as gross vs. net.

Plus we know just how bad the gross is from indie artists who get paid 100% of the “stream share”. It’s shit, ok? That’s why we know Spotify are under pressure to increase royalties.

But arbitrarily raising the total royalty pool would have consequences: it could trigger most-favored-nation clauses, obligate Spotify to pay more across the board.

Another way to raise royalties would be to “flatten” some of the minimum guarantee, i.e., make a portion of it nonrecoupable from future royalty payments. This was the practice with record clubs—a nonrecoupable payment has the added benefit of not being shared with artists as a kind of catalog-wide payment. This would also likely trigger MFNs, so that’s not super appealing either.

So by excluding low-performing tracks from the royalty pool, Spotify isn’t reducing fraud or increasing fairness. It’s reallocating revenue. And not randomly—it’s redistributing it upward. The money those artists would have earned is now being handed to the top-performing tracks, which overwhelmingly belong to major labels and large catalog owners.

Don’t you think that if the goal was to reduce costs, Spotify would just shrink the pie and pocket the difference? It seems to me that more money to fewer people is likely the real purpose of the 1,000-stream rule.

The Threat of Industry-Wide Collusion

Spotify isn’t alone. Amazon Music and Deezer have introduced similar thresholds, raising serious concerns about whether this is a coordinated move by dominant platforms to marginalize smaller rightsholders. When multiple major services adopt the same gatekeeping metric at the same time, and benefit in the same way, it’s not unreasonable to ask whether they’re acting in lockstep. In fact, this concept in antitrust law is called tacit collusion (or “conscious parallelism”) which occurs when competitors coordinate their behavior—such as pricing or output—without explicit agreements or communication. Instead of entering into a formal cartel, companies mirror each other’s pricing or business strategies, knowing that mutual restraint benefits all of them

Even if there’s no smoking gun, the outcome is clear: fewer royalties paid to emerging and independent creators, and more concentrated control over who makes money from streaming.

Playlists, Penalties, and Platform Power

Here’s the twist: just because a track falls below 1,000 streams and no longer qualifies for royalties doesn’t mean Spotify stops using it. These sub-threshold tracks don’t vanish—they become part of what we might call Spotify’s “shadow catalog”: music that still populates playlists, fuels the recommendation algorithm, and keeps users listening, but doesn’t generate payouts.

Every time a user plays a low-performing track, Spotify collects engagement data. That information feeds into its personalization systems, sharpening the algorithm’s ability to retain users and increase time-on-platform. That extra engagement helps Spotify serve more ads, train better models, and keep listener churn down. It also enriches Spotify’s advertising and data ecosystem, especially on the free tier where listening time directly translates to ad revenue.

In other words, these unpaid tracks are still part of the machine. Spotify uses them to optimize engagement and advertising—but without paying the creators a cent. It’s profit without payout. Value extraction without compensation. And in the long tail of the music economy, that adds up to millions of tracks silently pulling their weight for free.

So it seems that this is the quid for the pro quo.

A Cautionary Tale for Songwriters

The 1,000-stream threshold is a cautionary tale for songwriters as they approach Phonorecords V. What began as a “fraud prevention” tool is now a benchmark for excluding smaller rights holders from royalties altogether. Streaming services will point to these thresholds as precedent—arguing that if labels can accept payout limits, publishers should too. Without strong opposition, platforms could push for mechanical royalty thresholds that mirror streamshare rules, cutting off compensation to low-earning songs. This isn’t just about recorded music anymore. It’s a warning: once a gate is built, it can be copied—and used to lock out songwriters next.

A Royalty System That Punishes the Wrong People

Spotify’s royalty threshold is spun as a way to fight fraud and reward “working artists,” you know, kind of like don’t be evil. But in reality, it codifies a system where only the most popular tracks get paid—regardless of how much they contribute to the overall value of the platform.

And when other streaming services follow the same path, it stops looking like business as usual and starts to resemble a coordinated effort to narrow the market and marginalize everyone but the top-tier players.

This isn’t a royalty system built on fairness or transparency. It’s a redistribution scheme—not to help more artists earn a living, but to serve bigger slices to fewer people.

And that should raise alarms far beyond the music industry. Looking at you, Gail Slater.

August 7, 2025 by thetrichordist

United for Artists’ Rights: Amicus Briefs Filed in Vetter v. Resnik Support Global Copyright Termination for Songwriters and Authors: The Authors Guild, Inc., Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, Inc., Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers Of America, Inc., Society Of Composers & Lyricists, Inc. and Songwriters Guild Of America, Inc.

In Vetter v. Resnik, songwriter Cyril Vetter won his trial case in Baton Rouge allowing him to recover worldwide rights in his song “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love” after serving his 35 year termination notice on his former publisher, Resnik Music Group. The publisher appealed. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear the case and currently is weighing whether U.S. copyright termination rights include “foreign” territories—a question that strikes at the heart of artists’ ability to reclaim their work worldwide (whatever “foreign” means).

Cyril’s attorney Tim Kappel explains the case if you need an explainer:

An astonishing number of friend of the court briefs were filed by many songwriter groups. We’re going to post them all and today’s brief is by The Authors Guild, Inc., Dramatists Legal Defense Fund, Inc., Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers Of America, Inc., Society Of Composers & Lyricists, Inc. and Songwriters Guild Of America, Inc.

We believe the answer must be yes. Congress gave creators and their heirs the right to regain control of their work after decades, and that promise means little if global rights are excluded. The outcome of this case could either reaffirm that promise—or open the door for multinational publishers to sidestep it entirely.

That’s why we’re sharing friend of the court briefs from across the creative communities. Each one brings a different perspective—but all defend the principle that artists deserve a real, global right to take back what’s theirs, because as Chris said Congress did not give authors a second bite at half the apple.

Read the latest amicus brief below.

Authors Guild et al Amicus Brief Download

July 10, 2025July 12, 2025 by thetrichordist

Spotify’s Paradox: An Algorithm Can Spot Breakout Artists… But Doesn’t Pay Them

Spotify has long claimed its algorithms can spot breakout tracks and rising artists long before traditional gatekeepers notice. From Discover Weekly to Release Radar, the service positions itself as more than a music service — it’s an engine for musical discovery. You know…exposure.

In interviews, press releases, and annual shareholder letters, Daniel Ek the former pirate and future defense contractor and Spotify have boasted that their data can pinpoint the ‘next big thing,’ making Spotify the best place for discovering and nurturing new talent. They raise money on the issue and their market cap is $150.983B today. So they’re sharing the gold with the artists that they extract value from, yes?

The New Threshold Policy

Well, no. Spotify now imposes a threshold: tracks must reach roughly 1,000 streams per year to qualify for recorded music royalties. But understand this–while they don’t pay on those 1,000 streams, they do collect listener data on them and that powers their algorithm. You know, the algorithm they brag on can spot talent, kid. Because those first 1,000 streams are whatchamacallit…free goods. Or is it breakage? Or maybe a kind of packaging deduction?

Under this no-pay-but-track model, Spotify can recognize early listener activity and harness it for its personalized playlists and marketing efforts — yet it doesn’t pay artists for those early plays until the artist meets an arbitrary 1,000 stream threshold. And realize this–an artist could have 100 tracks with 1 million streams each and 100 tracks with less than 1,000, and they won’t get paid on the less streamed tracks. So the pitch here is the track not the artist, yet another contradiction from the Spotify pitch deck.

The Conflict

This creates a troubling tension:

For Spotify: The first few hundred plays are enough for its algorithm to assess the track, recommend it to listeners, and monetize engagement. And brag on it to investors.

For Artists: Those same early plays don’t count toward royalties. The track can gain exposure across the platform, but the artist sees no income until the threshold is crossed.

What It Means

Aside from they’re scumbags? Well, if Spotify can spot a breakout track when it has only a few hundred plays, why can’t it pay for those plays? Its data and recommendations benefit Spotify — obviously, they brag on it. The free goods data makes the service more attractive, bolstering its story to investors, and enriching its user experience — long before it benefits the artist making the records. (To add insult to injury, they do have to pay the songwriters under the benighted compulsory license which they no doubt are going to try to ditch in the next CRB.)

This paradox exposes a deeper tension in the streaming model: platforms excel at extracting value from listener data but adopt a policy to let them grab that data long before it translates into royalties for creators. Talk about data is the new oil.

This paradox shines a light on how platforms monetize listener data early — and benefit from it — while delaying or denying payments for those same streams. What Spotify promotes as ‘discovery’ often operates as monetization for the platform, leaving the artist with nothing until an arbitrary threshold is crossed. The same is likely true of all the platforms that adopt Spotify’s freebie threshold model in what the antitrust lawyers call conscious parallelism, looking at you Amazon and Deezer.

What is to be Done?

If Spotify truly champions discovery, it should champion fair compensation from the first stream. The ability to spot breakout tracks early must be matched by a commitment to pay for them.

It’s time for a more transparent and equitable approach — one that recognizes the value of every stream and every listener, regardless of its place in the self licking ice cream cone.

This post first appeared on MusicTech.Solutions

June 30, 2025 by thetrichordist

Big Beautiful AI Safe Harbor asks If David Sacks wants to Make America Screwed Again?

In a dramatic turn of events, Congress is quietly advancing a 10-year federal safe harbor for Big Tech that would block any state and local regulation of artificial intelligence (AI). That safe harbor would give Big Tech another free ride on the backs of artists, authors, consumers, all of us and our children. It would stop cold the enforcement of state laws to protect consumers like the $1.370 billion dollar settlement Google reached with the State of Texas last week for grotesque violations of user privacy. The bill would go up on Big Tech’s trophy wall right next to the DMCA, Section 230 and Title I of the Music Modernization Act.

Introduced through the House Energy and Commerce Committee as part of a broader legislative package branded with President Trump’s economic agenda, this safe harbor would prevent states from enforcing or enacting any laws that address the development, deployment, or oversight of AI systems. While couched as a measure to ensure national uniformity and spur innovation, this proposal carries serious consequences for consumer protection, data privacy, and state sovereignty. It threatens to erase hard-fought state-level protections that shield Americans from exploitative child snooping, data scraping, biometric surveillance, and the unauthorized use of personal and all creative works. This post unpacks how we got here, why it matters, and what can still be done to stop it.

The Origins of the New Safe Harbor

The roots of the latest AI safe harbor lie in a growing push from Silicon Valley-aligned political operatives and venture capital influencers, many of whom fear a patchwork of state-level consumer protection laws that would stop AI data scraping. Among the most vocal proponents is tech entrepreneur-turned White House crypto czar David Sacks, who has advocated for federal preemption of state AI rules in order to protect startup innovation from what he and others call regulatory overreach also known as state “police powers” to protect state residents.

If my name was “Sacks” I’d probably be a bit careful about doing things that could get me fired. His influence reportedly played a role in shaping the safe harbor’s timing and language, leveraging connections on Capitol Hill to attach it to a larger pro-business package of legislation. That package—marketed as a pillar of President Trump’s economic plan—was seen as a convenient vehicle to slip through controversial provisions with minimal scrutiny. You know, let’s sneak one past the boss.

Why This Is Dangerous for Consumers and Creators

The most immediate danger of the AI safe harbor is its preemption of state protections at a time when AI technologies are accelerating unchecked. States like California, Illinois, and Virginia have enacted—or are considering—laws to limit how companies use AI to analyze facial features, scan emails, extract audio, or mine creative works from social media. The AI mantra is that they can snarf down “publicly available data” which essentially means everything that’s not behind a paywall. Because there is no federal AI regulation yet, state laws are crucial for protecting vulnerable populations, including children whose photos and personal information are shared by parents online. Under the proposed AI safe harbor, such protections would be nullified for 10 years–and don’t think it won’t be renewed.

Without the ability to regulate AI at the state level, we could see our biometric data harvested without consent. Social media posts—including photos of babies, families, and school events—could be scraped and used to train commercial AI systems without transparency or recourse. Creators across all copyright categories could find their works ingested into large language models and generative tools without license or attribution. Emails and other personal communications could be fed into AI systems for profiling, advertising, or predictive decision-making without oversight.

While federal regulation of AI is certainly coming this AI safe harbor includes no immediate substitute. Instead, it freezes state level regulatory development entirely for a decade—an eternity in the technology world—during which time the richest companies in the history of commerce can entrench themselves further with little fear of accountability. And it likely will provide a blueprint for federal legislation when it comes.

A Strategic Misstep for Trump’s Economic Agenda: Populism or Make America Screwed Again?

Ironically, attaching the moratorium to a legislative package meant to symbolize national renewal may ultimately undermine the very populist and sovereignty-based themes that President Trump has championed. By insulating Silicon Valley firms from state scrutiny, the legislation effectively prioritizes the interests of data-rich corporations over the privacy and rights of ordinary Americans. It hands a victory to unelected tech executives and undercuts the authority of governors, state legislators, and attorney generals who have stepped in where federal law has lagged behind. So much for that states are “laboratories of democracy” jazz.

Moreover, the manner in which the safe harbor was advanced legislatively—slipped into what is supposed to be a reconciliation bill without extensive hearings or stakeholder input—is classic pork and classic Beltway maneuvering in smoke filled rooms. Critics from across the political spectrum have noted that such tactics cheapen the integrity of any legislation they touch and reflect the worst of Washington horse-trading.

What Can Be Done to Stop It

The AI safe harbor is not a done deal. There are several procedural and political tools available to block or remove it from the broader legislative package.

1. Committee Intervention – Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee or the Rules Committee can offer amendments to strip or revise the moratorium before it proceeds to the full House.
2. House Floor Action – Opponents of the moratorium can offer floor amendments during debate to strike the provision. This requires coordination and support from members across both parties.
3. Senate “Byrd Rule” Challenge and Holds – Because reconciliation bills must be budget-related, the Senate Parliamentarian can strike the safe harbor if it’s deemed “non-germane” which it certainly seems to be. Senators can formally raise this challenge.
4. Conference Committee Negotiation – If different versions of the legislation pass the House and Senate, the final language will be hashed out in conference. There is still time to remove the moratorium here.
5. Public Advocacy – Artists, parents, consumer advocates, and especially state officials can apply pressure through media, petitions, and direct outreach to lawmakers, highlighting the harms and democratic risks of federal preemption. States may be able to sue to block the safe harbor as unconstitutional (see Chris’s discussion of constitutionality) but let’s not wait to get to that point. It must be said that any such litigation poses a threat to Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” courtesy of David Sacks.

Conclusion

The AI safe harbor may have been introduced quietly, but there’s a growing backlash from all corners. Its consequences would be anything but subtle. If enacted, it would freeze innovation in AI accountability, strip states of their ability to protect residents, and expose Americans to widespread digital exploitation. While marketed as pro-innovation, the safe harbor looks more like a gift to data-hungry monopolies at the expense of federalist principles and individual rights.

It’s not too late to act, but doing so requires vigilance, transparency, and an insistence that even the most powerful Big Tech oligarchs remain subject to democratic oversight.

May 15, 2025May 15, 2025 by thetrichordist

@ArtistRights Newsletter 4/14/25

The Artist Rights Watch podcast returns for another season! This week’s episode features AI Legislation, A View from Europe: Helienne Lindvall, President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) and ARI Director Chris Castle in conversation regarding current issues for creators regarding the EU AI Act and the UK Text and Data Mining legislation. Download it here or subscribe wherever you get your audio podcasts.

New Survey for Songwriters: We are surveying songwriters about whether they want to form a certified union. Please fill out our short Survey Monkey confidential survey here! Thanks!

AI Litigation: Kadrey v. Meta

gov.uscourts.cand_.415175.525.0 Download

Law Professors Reject Meta’s Fair Use Defense in Friend of the Court Brief

Ticketing
Viagogo failing to prevent potentially unlawful practices, listings on resale site suggest that scalpers are speculatively selling tickets they do not yet have (Rob Davies/The Guardian)

ALEC Astroturf Ticketing Bill Surfaces in North Carolina Legislation

ALEC Ticketing Bill Surfaces in Texas to Rip Off Texas Artists (Chris Castle/MusicTechPolicy)

International AI Legislation

Brazil’s AI Act: A New Era of AI Regulation (Daniela Atanasovska and Lejla Robeli/GDPR Local)

Why robots.txt won’t get it done for AI Opt Outs (Chris Castle/MusicTechPolicy)

Feature Translation: How has the West’s misjudgment of China’s AI ecosystem distorted the global technology competition landscape (Jeffrey Ding/ChinAI)

Unethical AI Training Harms Creators and Society, Argues AI Pioneer (Ed Nawotka/Publishers Weekly)

AI Ethics

Céline Dion Calls Out AI-Generated Music Claiming to Feature the Iconic Singer Without Her Permission (Marina Watts/People)

Splice CEO Discusses Ethical Boundaries of AI in Music (Nilay Patel/The Verge)

Spotify’s Bold AI Gamble Could Disrupt The Entire Music Industry (Bernard Marr/Forbes)

Books

Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee (Coming May 13)

April 17, 2025 by thetrichordist

PRESS RELEASE: @Human_Artistry Campaign Endorses NO FAKES Act to Protect Personhood from AI

For Immediate Release

HUMAN ARTISTRY CAMPAIGN ENDORSES NO FAKES ACT

Bipartisan Bill Reintroduced by Senators Blackburn, Coons, Tillis, & Klobuchar and Representatives Salazar, Dean, Moran, Balint and Colleagues

Create New Federal Right for Use of Voice and Visual Likeness
in Digital Replicas

Empowers Artists, Voice Actors, and Individual Victims to Fight Back Against
AI Deepfakes and Voice Clones

WASHINGTON, DC (April 9, 2025) – Amid global debate over guardrails needed for AI, the Human Artistry Campaign today announced its support for the reintroduced “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act of 2025” (“NO FAKES Act”) – landmark legislation giving every person an enforceable new federal intellectual property right in their image and voice.

Building off the original NO FAKES legislation introduced last Congress, the updated bill was reintroduced today by Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Chris Coons (D-DE), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) alongside Representatives María Elvira Salazar (R-FL-27), Madeleine Dean (D-PA-4), Nathaniel Moran (R-TX-1), and Becca Balint (D-VT-At Large) and bipartisan colleagues.

The legislation sets a strong federal baseline protecting all Americans from invasive AI-generated deepfakes flooding digital platforms today. From young students bullied by non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes to families scammed by voice clones to recording artists and performers replicated to sing or perform in ways they never did, the NO FAKES Act provides powerful remedies requiring platforms to quickly take down unconsented deepfakes and voice clones and allowing rightsholders to seek damages from creators and distributors of AI models designed specifically to create harmful digital replicas.

The legislation’s thoughtful, measured approach preserves existing state causes of action and rights of publicity, including Tennessee’s groundbreaking ELVIS Act. It also contains carefully calibrated exceptions to protect free speech, open discourse and creative storytelling – without trampling the underlying need for real, enforceable protection against the vast range of invasive and harmful deepfakes and voice clones.

Human Artistry Campaign Senior Advisor Dr. Moiya McTier released the following statement in support of the legislation:

“The Human Artistry Campaign stands for preserving essential qualities of all individuals – beginning with a right to their own voice and image. The NO FAKES Act is an important step towards necessary protections that also support free speech and AI development. The Human Artistry Campaign commends Senators Blackburn, Coons, Tillis, and Klobuchar and Representatives Salazar, Dean, Moran, Balint, and their colleagues for shepherding bipartisan support for this landmark legislation, a necessity for every American to have a right to their own identity as highly realistic voice clones and deepfakes become more pervasive.”

Dr. Moiya McTier, Human Artistry Campaign Senior Advisor

By establishing clear rules for the new federal voice and image right, the NO FAKES Act will power innovation and responsible, pro-human uses of powerful AI technologies while providing strong protections for artists, minors and others. This important bill has cross-sector support from Human Artistry Campaign members and companies such as OpenAI, Google, Amazon, Adobe and IBM. The NO FAKES Act is a strong step forward for American leadership that erects clear guardrails for AI and real accountability for those who reject the path of responsibility and consent.

Learn more & let your representatives know Congress should pass NO FAKES Act here.

# # #

ABOUT THE HUMAN ARTISTRY CAMPAIGN: The Human Artistry Campaign is the global initiative for the advancement of responsible AI – working to ensure it develops in ways that strengthen the creative ecosystem, while also respecting and furthering the indispensable value of human artistry to culture. Across 34 countries, more than 180 organizations have united to protect every form of human expression and creative endeavor they represent – journalists, recording artists, photographers, actors, songwriters, composers, publishers, independent record labels, athletes and more. The growing coalition champions seven core principles for keeping human creativity at the center of technological innovation. For further information, please visit humanartistrycampaign.com

April 10, 2025 by thetrichordist

@Artist Rights Institute Newsletter 3/24/25

The Artist Rights Institute’s news digest Newsletter

New Survey for Songwriters: We are surveying songwriters about whether they want to form a certified union. Please fill out our short Survey Monkey confidential survey here! Thanks!

Songwriters and Union Organizing

RICO and Criminal Copyright Infringement

perry-v-shein-order-12b6 Download

AI Piracy

“Critics of UK’s AI © proposal must not ‘resist change” –@Peterkyle
Plz Sir. Equal rights for others doesn’t, in any way, diminish your own. The only way such a proposition can be logical is if one derives one’s worth from an unfair advantage over others.https://t.co/YT8ekCls79
— Crispin Hunt (@crispinhunt) March 24, 2025

@alexreisner: Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI (Alex Reisner/The Atlantic)

OpenAI and Google’s Dark New Campaign to Dismantle Artists’ Protections (Brian Merchant/Blood in the Machine)

Alden newspapers slam OpenAI, Google’s AI proposals (Sara Fischer/Axios)

AI Litigation

French Publishers and Authors Sue Meta over Copyright Works Used in AI Training (Kelvin Chan/AP)

DC Circuit Affirms Human Authorship Required for Copyright (David Newhoff/The Illusion of More)

OpenAI Asks White House for Relief From State AI Rules (Jackie Davalos/Bloomberg)

Microsoft faces FTC antitrust probe over AI and licensing practices (Prasanth Aby Thomas/Computer World)

Google and its Confederate AI Platforms Want Retroactive Absolution for AI Training Wrapped in the American Flag(Chris Castle/MusicTechPolicy)

AI and Human Rights

Human Rights and AI Opt Out (Chris Castle/MusicTechPolicy)

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025 by thetrichordist

The Trichordist

Author: thetrichordist