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Spotify Just Invented Ai Technology That Will Police Songwriter Plagiarism

entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,006
Songwriters of global hits getting sued for alleged plagiarism has become a recurrent story on MBW these past few years – and a recurrent source of misery for writers and their representatives in the industry.

But what if a songwriter or composer were able to use AI technology to avoid litigation altogether, by finding out if their song copies elements of other compositions, potentially in real time?

That could now be a reality, thanks to a Spotify invention revealed in a new European patent filing from the company obtained by MBW.
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www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

Spotify just invented AI technology that will police songwriter plagiarism - Music Business Worldwide

Spotify’s in-house AI expert, François Pachet, is a co-founder of the new technology, now being reviewed for a European patent…
www.musicbusinessworldwide.com www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

Why this is concerning?

 

Capricorn

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
701
Great points raised by WaifuMaster69, and I say this unironically.

I think this could potentially be a good idea if would be only used by musicians just to do a quick check to see if there's any blatant imitation they may not be aware of on a song they may be working on, but yeah... Considering how the world works, I'm sure it'd be abused by record companies to try to make some quick cash off of others.
 
Volimar

Volimar

volunteer forum janitor
Member
Oct 25, 2017
38,350
What a pain this will be. Purely coincidental recordings will be accused and software like this used as evidence.
 
OP
OP
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,006
Capricorn said:
Great points raised by WaifuMaster69, and I say this unironically.

I think this could potentially be a good idea if would be used by musicians just to do a quick check to see if there's any blatant imitation they may not be aware of, but yeah... Considering how the world works, I'm sure it'd be abused by record companies to try to make some quick cash off of others.
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I just noticed the crazy nickname lol.

They support BLM so at least they're bucking the anime avatar trends on Twitter!
 
moblin

moblin

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,107
Москва
Need more information, of course -- AI has been terrible at detecting things on media platforms but litigation over songwriting "plagiarism" has also gotten absurd when leeches see a potential windfall.

It sounds like it's just going to point out potential similarities worth taking a further look at rather than blaring "PLAGIARISM" at the creator and disallowing it from being put on the platform, but we need to see more imo

edit: also important to note that for charges of "plagiarism" to be successfully litigated something like "musical similarity" isn't really sufficient; you also need to demonstrate that the alleged plagiarist either intentionally or not heard the original song and repeated enough of it that it wasn't coincidental
 

Deleted member 24079

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
3,287
Capricorn said:
Great points raised by WaifuMaster69, and I say this unironically.

I think this could potentially be a good idea if would be only used by musicians just to do a quick check to see if there's any blatant imitation they may not be aware of on a song they may be working on, but yeah... Considering how the world works, I'm sure it'd be abused by record companies to try to make some quick cash off of others.
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Kind of like a college paper evaluator it seems like.
 
Trey

Trey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,957
Twitch algorithms coming to music producers themselves sounds like fun for everyone involved.
 
collige

collige

Member
Oct 31, 2017
12,772
It's not the the tech is bad, it's that it will be used in the most obviously lazy and shitty ways possible. I hate Spotify so fucking much.

A set of messages would then be displayed – describing a detected level of plagiarism regarding "a plurality of elements" such as a chord sequence, melodic fragments, harmony, etc. of a song (see fig 7 below)
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This part is especially funny because will.i.am got involved in a plagiarism controversy just last week that absolutely would not have matched any of these elements.
 
Lari

Lari

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,702
Brazil
Being in a new band never been as difficult, not only you have an ever decreasing number of possible band names, now you have an algorithm that'll come after you if you happen to sound like an older band.

Talk about pulling the ladder up behind you huh.
 
Unicorn

Unicorn

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 29, 2017
9,528
Protecting artists' fractions of pennies to increase the millions the Corp makes.
 
WinFonda

WinFonda

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,429
USA
im not sure why this is useful for spotify to have, other than they can potentially also sue said artists after having been successfully sued for plagiarism. basically, you stole it... now give us our money back + damages. or just straight up not pay artists who've deemed to 'copy' too much. ultimately, it seems like a way to funnel money to the top.
 
Truant

Truant

Member
Oct 28, 2017
6,758
This is fucking dystopian. All music is the same and they know it. I bet they're gonna have this as a service that big artists can subscribe to.
 
Zen

Zen

The Wise Ones
Member
Nov 1, 2017
9,657
I feel like what constitutes song plagiarism needs to be reviewed. It's like existing or older musicians have a monopoly on a sound because they were 'first'. Outright plagiarism is one thing, but this seems like it would be implemented in the most idiotic way possible.
 
krazen

krazen

Member
Oct 27, 2017
13,123
Gentrified Brooklyn
Unicorn said:
Protecting artists' fractions of pennies to increase the millions the Corp makes.
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Yup. The songs will still get made, the algorithm will make choices on which corporations get a check on the back end for songwriting and 'sampling' which will be solely taken out of the .00001 cent an artist while he/she struggles to make rent when a song gets streamed.

The irony of this is when the tables are turned; a car commercial makes a 'sound alike' song of an artist...a team of lawyers appear to argue the opposite. The house always wins.
 

Deleted member 11637

Oct 27, 2017
18,204
Cold take: AI almost never makes our lives better.
 
sangreal

sangreal

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,890
This isn't a patent for any AI plagiarism system (they already exist), it's a patent for tying one into a GUI to visualize for artists where a plagiarism detector found matches

Also, it's for lead sheets not recordings -- it has nothing to do with Spotify the streaming service. They want to sell a platform where artists can see within their composition software any potential plagiarism claims in realtime
 
Ether_Snake

Ether_Snake

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
11,306
Why is it their responsibility to do this? What's in it for them?

I know...

They plan to generate music using AI and want to make sure they can't get sued, so they need an AI which can detect plagiarism.
 
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OP
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,006
Ether_Snake said:
Why is it their responsibility to do this? What's in it for them?

I know...

They plan to generate music using AI and want to make sure they can't get sued, so they need an AI which can detect plagiarism.
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Spotify is saying it is empowering artists so they don't get sued.

From the article:

Spotify argues that while such techniques "are significant improvements over manual approaches, they still require significant expertise and are not suited for operation by typical artists and composers, especially artists and composers who are interested in detecting plagiarism during the composition process".

The company's solution to this problem "is a graphical user interface (GUI) that is more intuitive, more precise as to the portion of the work that may be considered plagiaristic, and that provides dynamic visual feedback in substantially real-time".

"Such a tool," explains Spotify's patent, "would allow artists to generate lead sheets more quickly and confidently by detecting and providing visual feedback as to whether any aspect of the work has a probability of being deemed plagiaristic."
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The issue here is that the conceit itself is flawed by design.
 
Pororoka

Pororoka

Member
Nov 1, 2017
1,210
MX
Hey Spotify, what if... If only... You use that tech to catch hate speak songs and artists too?
 
Pyccko

Pyccko

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,868
probably gonna run a scheme where they can demonetize plays of songs that get flagged

but then every song ever written gets flagged
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Muppet of a Man

Muppet of a Man

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,671
AI is a way for entrenched technocrat elites to launder subjective value judgments that bias the incumbents of power in an effort to sanitize them of their subjectiviy and bias and deem them "objective" just because they went through a black box algorithm and popped out the other side of a complicated machine. "AI" or machine learning is extremely dangerous for this reason alone, because it is easily weaponized via the likely-biased (or limited) data it is trained on.
 
Calabi

Calabi

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,484
Volimar said:
What a pain this will be. Purely coincidental recordings will be accused and software like this used as evidence.
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I mean if someone whistles or vaguely breathes in a tune then they'll get striked.

This is not the solution, more technology so the rentiers can own and sit on more of the assets, they'll be no room left for creativity in the future.
 
OnPorpoise

OnPorpoise

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
1,300
The weasels that own popular artist's song catalogs are just going to use this to squeeze newer artists for everything they can get.

It's musical patent trolling.
 
looprider

looprider

Member
Oct 27, 2017
943
Yeah this is terrible. As the tweet mentioned, there are limits to tones and scales, and it will happen that some songs sound the same, purely by accident.

For example, I did a track a few years ago with a simple synth lead I really enjoyed. Months later, I got into the group Suicide. Come to find out the synth melody I wrote is verrrry close to one of their songs. It happens all the time with music. And having an AI run rampant without consideration to factors like this is a bad bad idea.

But Spotify sucks for artists, that is known, so not surprised they'd try something like this.
 
Calabi

Calabi

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,484
jorgeton said:
Yeah this is terrible. As the tweet mentioned, there are limits to tones and scales, and it will happen that some songs sound the same, purely by accident.

For example, I did a track a few years ago with a simple synth lead I really enjoyed. Months later, I got into the group Suicide. Come to find out the synth melody I wrote is verrrry close to one of their songs. It happens all the time with music. And having an AI run rampant without consideration to factors like this is a bad bad idea.

But Spotify sucks for artists, that is known, so not surprised they'd try something like this.
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The great thing about it is [sarcasm] the law won't have to be involved to testing of these cases. No requirement on those enforcing their copyright, to prove that you are breaking the law, no reason for anything to go to court at all, they just get carte blanche to either monetise or ban your music completely without any human involvement at all or any examination or questioning it. Its just companies helping one another out to do what they love to do monetise everything. I expect it will allow the record companies to come up with all kind's of messed up scenario's like you make a song that sounds a bit like one of there's they ban it and seize it and release it under their own impervious corporate banner a few years later(of course they change it a bit first).

We really are looking at a crazy dystopian future.
 
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