News Summary

• That’s because Google trained its model on a large set of music — including copyrighted major-label recordings — and then went to show it to rights holders, rather than asking permission first, according to four sources with knowledge of the search giant’s push into generative AI and music..
• “If a generative AI model is trained on music for the purpose of creating new musical works that compete in the music market, then the training is not a fair use,” Kooker said..
• While some major labels are touting YouTube as an important partner in the evolving world of music and AI, not everyone in the industry has been as enthusiastic about these new efforts..
• “Demis [Hassabis, CEO of Google Deepmind] and his team presented a research project around genAI and music and my head came off of my shoulders,” Cohen, global head of music for Google and YouTube, told Billboard in November..
• Newton-Rex summarized the different mindsets succinctly: “What we in the AI world think of as ‘training data’ is what the rest of the world has thought of for a long time as creative output.” Additional reporting by Bill Donahue.Daily newsletters straight to your inbox.
• Dream Track, the only AI product it has released publicly so far, allows select YouTube creators to soundtrack clips on Shorts with pieces of music, based on text prompts, that can include replicas of famous artists’ voices..