Tag: TDM

Europe at the Crossroads: Will the Law Strengthen Authors’ Rights or Surrender the “Crown Jewels” of Human Creativity? @Helienne Lindvall’s ECSA Keynote

[An important keynote from Helienne Lindvall, President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, on why creators’ consent, transparency, and fair remuneration must remain central in the AI era. The keynote was presented as part of the European Composer & Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) conference on “Authors’ Rights and Music Streaming in the Age of AI”, which focused on generative AI and the future of music creators’ rights in Europe

Good afternoon to every one of you, whether you’re here in this room or joining us online. It is a pleasure to welcome you all here today and I want to thank MEDAA, la Maison européenne des Autrices et des Auteurs, for hosting today’s ECSA conference on “Authors’ Rights and Music Streaming in the Age of AI”. ]

I am Helienne Lindvall, songwriter and the President of ECSA, the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance. ECSA represents 57 professional music authors’ associations and more than 30,000 composers across 29 European countries. I am honoured to be here today with fellow composers, songwriters, policymakers, and representatives from Europe’s cultural and creative sectors.

I am particularly grateful to welcome Henna Virkkunen, the Executive Vice-President for Technological Sovereignty, Security, and Democracy at the European Commission. Ms. Virkkunen – thank you again for joining us. We are all looking forward to hearing your opening remarks in just a moment.

I also want to thank three Members of the European Parliament for their participation: Emma Rafowicz, co-rapporteur on the Agora EU programme, Axel Voss, rapporteur on the recent report on copyright and generative AI, and Hélder Sousa Silva, who will draft the forthcoming report on the Cultural and creative sectors in the age of AI.

We would also like to express our deepest gratitude to all the speakers who will contribute their time and expertise today. And remember that this conference would not be possible without the support of the Creative Europe programme.

So, Authors’ Rights and Music Streaming in the Age of AI? Let me first take a step back to 2016. Ten years ago, the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, called artists and creators “Europe’s crown jewels”. He said their works should be protected and they should be paid fairly.

Three years later, the EU adopted the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. We applauded it, for enshrining appropriate and proportionate remuneration, for increasing transparency in contracts, and for strengthening author’s rights on content-sharing platforms. Seven years on, where do we stand?

Well, the truth is that the principle of appropriate and proportionate remuneration is still too often circumvented in practice, in particular through buyout practices, but also when it comes to other online exploitation, such as streaming.

And then came generative AI. Adopted at a time when generative AI was barely existing, the Directive does not mention AI anywhere.

But it does include text and data mining exceptions, designed to help universities and researchers, discover new trends and gaining new knowledge. Supposedly with minimal harm to authors and other rightholders.

The reality? When not simply ignoring EU rules, global AI companies have exploited those exceptions far beyond their intended purpose. They’ve scraped and used all our works without consent, without transparency, and without remuneration. The harm to music authors isn’t minimal—it’s maximal. AI-generated content now imitates and substitutes us.

Some say “You could have opted out.” But here’s the truth: AI companies scraped everything – looting the entire history of musical works – before we had a fair chance to opt out and even know how to opt out.

To quote Baroness Beeban Kidron, the director of Bridget Jones The Edge of Reason: “Should shopkeepers have to opt out of shoplifters? Should victims of violence have to opt out of attacks? Should those who use the internet for banking have to opt out of fraud? I struggle to think of another situation where someone protected by law must proactively wrap it around themselves on an individual basis.”

And for a songwriter like me—working with co-writers, different CMOs, publishers, and labels—opting out is practically impossible. And even if it was possible, we would be naive to believe it would be respected. How would we even know if it were, when there is no transparency?

The AI Act’s implementation hasn’t helped. Its transparency rules are weak. Trade secrets protect massive theft. Imagine a fast-food manufacturer who had stolen all the ingredients that went into their products, refusing to reveal what the ingredients are or where they came from, calling it a “trade secret”. Then demanding it should be up to the farmers to prove it was their produce that was stolen. That’s what we’re dealing with.

Coca Cola may have a secret recipe, but it still has to display what went into each bottle, and pay its suppliers. It shouldn’t be up to creators to prove AI companies used our works. They should be required to get our consent and to be transparent. Or we should presume — correctly — that they already scraped the entire web.

Yes, a few licensing deals have been signed in the past year — between a couple of major labels and AI companies, usually after litigation, and mostly in the US. But we know next to nothing about the details of those deals – or whether composers and songwriters will benefit in any way, despite it being our works that have been stolen and exploited.

Licensing shouldn’t only be available to those with the muscle to sue. In Europe, where we claim to cherish our artists and cultural diversity, survival of the fittest cannot be the answer. AI companies have ingested ALL the music available online. It makes no sense that only the most powerful get a license and get paid, when they only supplied a fraction of the ingredients. And let me be clear: we are not against AI. It can be a helpful tool in our workflow as creators. We are simply against unlicensed AI.

Generative AI companies must act ethically. They must work with us—not profit from our work without consent and at our expense. That’s the only way to rebuild trust between creators and AI companies. Currently, the AI landscape is like the Wild West, and AI startups that want to act ethically cannot compete when there is a shop next door selling stolen goods.

Let’s be honest, the current framework is misinterpreted and applied far beyond its original purpose. It has created a high level of uncertainty that only benefits global generative AI companies to the detriment of creators. We cannot wait for courts to decide policy. We cannot rely on opaque deals between big corporations where the money rarely trickles down to creators.

This isn’t the time for sticking plasters [or Band Aids] on a wooden leg. It’s time for policymakers to be bold. The good news: not only the Pope but also many EU Member States and the European Parliament are showing the way. The recent Voss report on Copyright and Generative AI recognizes that AI systems rely massively on protected works—exploited without authorization or compensation. It recommends:

• Full transparency for AI training, including a rebuttable presumption of use for any AI service operating in the EU; and

• A new legislative initiative to clarify licensing rules and establish a functioning market.

We fully support this. We need a framework that:

1. Enables fair remuneration for creators

2. Ensures EU copyright law applies to all services operating in the EU.

3. Addresses the substitution and dilution of human creation by AI output

4. Ensures collective management can deliver appropriate and proportionate remuneration to all creators—big and small

The Parliament has also insisted that digital platforms must act against AI fraud and manipulation. And it is not the first time – the European Parliament’s report on music streaming, adopted in 2024, already did so, with many other recommendations to improve the identification of creators on music streaming platforms and ensure more transparency in algorithms and recommendation systems, as well as when it comes to AI generated music.

For composers and songwriters, streaming fraud through AI is a critical issue. In April, Deezer reported that 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded daily to the platform – that’s 44% of all uploads. In March, a man in the US pleaded guilty to defrauding streaming platforms with AI-generated tracks, generating millions in royalties. Fraudsters impersonate real artists, upload fake songs to their profiles, and steal their royalties. This isn’t just an economic issue. It’s ethical – it’s a massive violation of moral rights and personal data.

And it threatens citizens’ trust in the authenticity of digital content. That’s one of the many reasons why we welcome MEPs Rafowicz and Kuhnke’s draft report on AgoraEU, which rightly prioritizes human creativity over AI-generated works.

We also warmly welcome this proposal for a dedicated music strand that can address the concrete challenges and structural imbalances impacting the sector, such as increasing market concentration, artistic freedom, fair remuneration and the growing dominance of digital service providers.

Today, 26 organisations from across the European music sector published a statement to support this draft report and encourage all MEPs to give the music sector the support it deserves.

Now, let me conclude: Our plea today is simple: The promise made to Europe’s crown jewels in 2016 remains unfulfilled: The exceptions designed to help researchers and generate information now fuel billion-dollar companies that exploit us. The transparency we were promised is hidden behind trade secrets. The licensing market that should exist is reserved for those who can afford the most expensive lawyers in the US. This must change.

We call on European policymakers to act with courage. With the European Parliament, we call for an additional legal framework, one that can finally uphold the key principles of transparency, consent and remuneration and encourage a well-functioning licensing market. This is not about adding more regulation This is to rebalance a framework that is fundamentally flawed, far from its intended purpose and Europe’s most fundamental values.

Europe must decide: will it stand with its creators, or stand by while our works are taken without consent? Let us become once again Europe’s crown jewels.

Please. Let’s make this true. Thank you.

by thetrichordist

New Songwriter Union Survey and @ArtistRights Institute Newsletter 3/10/25

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!

Big Tech’s “Text and Data Mining” Lobbying Head Fake

George York of Digital Creators Coalition and RIAA gives an excellent overview of international AI Text and Data Mining (TDM) loopholes and how to plug them. Nov. 20, 2024 Artist Rights Symposium, Washington, DC. Watch the Symposium playlist here.

Music

“I felt like a puppet”: the Motown hit Marvin Gaye felt like he didn’t deserve (Ben Forrest/Far Out) (h/t @ElizaNealsRocks

TikTok

Negotiations over a TikTok US deal have reportedly yet to begin (Stuart Dredge/Music Ally)

Artificial Intelligence: Text and Data Mining Exceptions

Digital Creators Coalition Letter to USTR on US Trade Policy for Threats from Text and Data Mining Exceptions Misapplied in AI Training (Chris Castle/Artist Rights Watch)

Sony slams ‘unworkable’ AI plans as music theft (William Turvill/The Sunday Times)

AI copyright shake-up could breach international law (Mark Sellman/The Times). (Tracks comments on Berne et al made by Digital Creators Coalition to USTR)

REPORT ON PIRATED CONTENT USED IN THE TRAINING OF GENERATIVE AI (Rights Alliance for Creative Industry on the Internet)

Ticketing

TWO PEOPLE ARRESTED ON CYBERCRIME CHARGES AFTER STEALING STUBHUB TICKETS TO ERAS TOUR(Daniel Kreps/Rolling Stone)

by Trichordist

Now with added retroactive acrobatics: @DamianCollins calls on UK Prime Minister to stop Google’s “Text and Data Mining” Circus

By Chris Castle

Damian Collins (former chair of the UK Parliament’s Digital Culture Media and Sport Select Committee) warns of Google’s latest artificial intelligence shenanigans in a must-read opinion piece in the Daily Mail. Mr. Collins highlights Google’s attempt to lobby its way into what is essentially a retroactive safe harbor to protect Google and its confederates in the AI land grab. (Safe harbors aka pirate utopias.)

While Mr. Collins writes about Google’s efforts to rewrite the laws of the UK to free ride in his home country which is egregious bullying, the episode he documents is instructive for all of us. If Google & Co. will do it to the Mother of Parliaments, it’s only a matter of time until Google & Co. do the same everywhere or know the reason why. Their goal is to hoover up all the world’s culture that the AI platforms have not scraped already and–crucially–to get away with it. And as Austin songwriter Guy Forsyth says, “…nothing says freedom like getting away with it.”

The timeline of AI’s appropriation of all the world’s culture is a critical understanding to appreciate just how depraved Big Tech’s unbridled greed really is. The important thing to remember is that AI platforms like Google have been scraping the Internet to train their AI for some time now, possibly many years. This apparently includes social media platforms they control. My theory is that Google Books was an early effort at digitization for large language models to support products like corpus machine translation as a predecessor to Gemini (“your twin”) and other Google AI products. We should ask Ray Kurzweil.

There is starting to be increasing evidence that this is exactly what these people are up to. 

The New York Times Uncovers the Crimes

According to an extensive long-form report in the New York Times by a team of very highly respected journalists, it turns out that Google has been planning this “Text and Data Mining” land grab for some time. At the very moment YouTube was issuing press releases about their Music AI Incubator and their “partners”–Google was stealing anything that was not nailed down that anyone had hosted on their massive platforms, including Google Docs, Google Maps, and…YouTube. The Times tells us:

Google transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text for its A.I. models, five people with knowledge of the company’s practices said. That potentially violated the copyrights to the videos, which belong to their creators….Google said that its A.I. models “are trained on some YouTube content,” which was allowed under agreements with YouTube creators, and that the company did not use data from office apps outside of an experimental program. 

I find it hard to believe that YouTube was both allowed to transcribe and scrape under all its content deals, or that they parsed through all videos to find the unprotected ones that fall victim to Google’s interpretation of the YouTube terms of use. So as we say in Texas, that sounds like bullshit for starters. 

How does this relate to the Text and Data Mining exception that Mr. Collins warns of? Note that the NYT tells us “Google transcribed YouTube videos to harvest text.” That’s a clue.

As Mr. Collins tells us: 

Google [recently] published a policy paper entitled: Unlocking The UK’s AI Potential.

What’s not to like?, you might ask. Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionise our economy and we don’t want to be left behind as the rest of the world embraces its benefits.

But buried in Google’s report is a call for a ‘text and data mining’ (TDM) exception to copyright. 

This TDM exception would allow Google to scrape the entire history of human creativity from the internet without permission and without payment.

And, of course, Mr. Collins is exactly correct, it’s safe to assume that’s exactly what Google have in mind. 

The Conspiracy of Dunces and the YouTube Fraud

In fairness, it wasn’t just Google ripping us off, but Google didn’t do anything to stop it as far as I can tell. One thing to remember is that YouTube was, and I think still is, not very crawlable by outsiders. It is almost certainly the case that Google would know who was crawling youtube.com, such as Bingbot, DuckDuckBot, Yandex Bot, or Yahoo Slurp if for no other reason that those spiders were not googlebot. With that understanding, the Times also tells us:

OpenAI researchers created a speech recognition tool called Whisper. It could transcribe the audio from YouTube videos, yielding new conversational text that would make an A.I. system smarter.

Some OpenAI employees discussed how such a move might go against YouTube’s rules, three people with knowledge of the conversations said. YouTube, which is owned by Google, prohibits use of its videos for applications that are “independent” of the video platform. [Whatever “independent” means.]

Ultimately, an OpenAI team transcribed more than one million hours of YouTube videos, the people said. The team included Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, who personally helped collect the videos, two of the people said. The texts were then fed into a system called GPT-4, which was widely considered one of the world’s most powerful A.I. models and was the basis of the latest version of the ChatGPT chatbot….

OpenAI eventually made Whisper, the speech recognition tool, to transcribe YouTube videos and podcasts, six people said. But YouTube prohibits people from not only using its videos for “independent” applications, but also accessing its videos by “any automated means (such as robots, botnets or scrapers).” [And yet it happened…]

OpenAI employees knew they were wading into a legal gray area, the people said, but believed that training A.I. with the videos was fair use. [Or could they have paid for the privilege?]

And strangely enough, many of the AI platforms sued by creators raise “fair use” as a defense (if not all of the cases) which is strangely reminiscent of the kind of crap we have been hearing from these people since 1999.

Now why might Google have permitted OpenAI to crawl YouTube and transcribe videos (and who knows what else)? Probably because Google was doing the same thing. In fact, the Times tells us:

Some Google employees were aware that OpenAI had harvested YouTube videos for data, two people with knowledge of the companies said. But they didn’t stop OpenAI because Google had also used transcripts of YouTube videos to train its A.I. models, the people said. That practice may have violated the copyrights of YouTube creators. So if Google made a fuss about OpenAI, there might be a public outcry against its own methods, the people said.

So Google and its confederate OpenAI may well have conspired to commit massive copyright infringement against the owner of a valid copyright, did so willingly, and for purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain. (Attempts to infringe are prohibited to the same extent as the completed act). The acts of these confederates vastly exceed the limits for criminal prosecution for both infringement and conspiracy.

But to Mr. Collins’ concern, the big AI platforms transcribed likely billions of hours of YouTube videos to manipulate text and data–you know, TDM.

The New Retroactive Safe Harbor: The Flying Googles Bring their TDM Circus Act to the Big Tent With Retroactive Acrobatics

But also realize the effect of the new TDM exception that Google and their Big Tech confederates are trying to slip past the UK government (and our own for that matter). A lot of the discussion about AI rulemaking acts as if new rules would be for future AI data scraping. Au contraire mes amis–on the contrary, the bad acts have already happened and they happened on an unimaginable scale.

So what Google is actually trying to do is get the UK to pass a retroactive safe harbor that would deprive citizens of valuable property rights–and also pass a prospective safe harbor so they can keep doing the bad acts with impunity.

Fortunately for UK citizens, the UK Parliament has not passed idiotic retroactive safe harbor legislation like the U.S. Congress has. I am, of course, thinking of the vaunted Music Modernization Act (MMA) that drooled its way to a retroactive safe harbor for copyright infringement, a shining example of the triumph of corruption that has yet to be properly challenged in the US on Constitutional grounds. 

There’s nothing like the MMA absurdity in the UK, at least not yet. However, that retroactive safe harbor was not lost on Google, who benefited directly from it. They loved it. They hung it over the mantle next to their other Big Game trophy, the DMCA. And now they’d like to do it again for the triptych of legislative taxidermy.

Because make no mistake–a retroactive safe harbor would be exactly the effect of Google’s TDM exception. Not to mention it would also be a form of retroactive eminent domain, or what the UK analogously might call the compulsory purchase of property under the Compulsory Purchase of Property Act. Well…”purchase” might be too strong a word, more like “transfer” because these people don’t intend to pay for a thing.

The effect of passing Google’s TDM exception would be to take property rights and other personal rights from UK citizens without anything like the level of process or compensation required under the Compulsory Purchase of Property–even when the government requires the sale of private property to another private entity (such as a railroad right of way or a utility easement).

The government is on very shaky ground with a TDM exception imposed by the government for the benefit of a private company, indeed foreign private companies who can well afford to pay for it. It would be missing government oversight on a case-by-base basis, no proper valuation, and for entirely commercial purposes with no public benefit. In the US, it would likely violate the Takings Clause of our Constitution, among other things.

It’s Not Just the Artists

Mr. Collins also makes a very important point that might get lost among the stars–it’s not just the stars that AI is ripping off–it is everyone. As the New York Times story points out (and it seems that there’s more whistleblowers on this point every day), the AI platforms are hoovering up EVERYTHING that is on the Internet, especially on their affiliated platforms. That includes baby videos, influencers, everything.

This is why it is cultural appropriation on a grand scale, indeed a scale of depravity that we haven’t seen since the Nurenberg Trials. A TDM exception would harm all Britons in one massive offshoring of British culture.

[This post first appeared on MusicTech.Solutions]

by Trichordist Editor