How the Music Business Can Tame the Dangerous AI Dragon

Here's a five point plan that makes a difference (and not just for music)

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

The music business is struggling with that right now. They just can’t make up their mind.

They love AI last week, and hate AI this week.

Source

I guess training AI to replace human musicians is evil—unless they can make a buck from it.

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But that isn’t a business strategy. It’s more like the TV show Let’s Make a Deal, where simpletons will trade everything they have for something unknown behind curtain three.

Major record labels need to be smarter than this. They have to formulate a real strategy for addressing the AI threat—something rock solid, and more than just Let’s Make a Deal.

This is not how to handle existential threats to your business

The larger truth is that AI companies aim to replace human recordings with cheap bot-made tracks. So can you really build partnerships with them?

When you dance with the devil, expect to get burned.

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On the other hand, AI isn’t going away.

So what do you do? What’s the larger vision? How do you handle new technology that poses an existential threat to your business.

Let me suggest five core principles.

They are the starting point of an ambitious, but necessary plan. They recognize the reality of new tech, but refuse to hand the keys of the kingdom to Silicon Valley.

(1) Record labels (and other music companies) should align themselves with musicians—who are their natural and obvious partners.

I shouldn’t need to say this, but unfortunately I do.

The big labels have often betrayed musicians. If we knew all the deals they have cut with streaming platforms, we would probably be horrified.

But sometimes documents get leaked to the press, so we can see the accounting games they use to harm musicians. (See, for example, here and here.)

I know how tempting it must be for a record label to cut deals like this. But they always pick the wrong partner—huge tech companies are not their friends. The stronger tech titans get, the more they will squeeze labels, and gradually (or rapidly, if they can) replace branded music with generic AI tracks.

It’s already happening—and faster than you think.

In contrast, musicians are the best long term partners for the labels. Musicians and music companies have shared interests—music isn’t just a cost item on their income sheet, the way it is for streamers. It’s their revenue, their profit, their everything—musical creativity is the engine room for their economics.

But even more to the point: musicians are the ultimate sources of artistry, energy, and excitement in the music business. If it gets down to a war—and it just might—you want to be on the same side as the creative talent.

So work with them—not against them.

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(2) Demand full disclosure when AI is used to create music. 

The deceptions must end. AI purveyors love to pretend that humans made their bot-built works—deceptive marketing is often part of their business plan.

That should be illegal.

If we have to litigate or lobby, do it. The music labels will find ready partners in publishing, journalism, graphic design, and about a thousand other fields to support this effort. And consumers want honesty too—they have a right to know the ingredients in cultural works.

Just achieving transparency will shift the balance of power enormously.

AI replacement theory relies on falsehood and duplicity. In a honest music ecosystem, both musicians and music companies start to regain their rights and their ability to compete in a fair marketplace.

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(3) Support AI as a tool used by musicians, who will retain IP (and other) rights—and oppose AI as a way of siphoning those rights & cash flows into the technocracy. 

We can’t stop AI, and really shouldn’t even try. But it should be used like every previous music technology—namely as a tool for the benefit of human creators.

Let musicians decide how they want to use the new AI tools. But humans must own the intellectual property, not the bots. The humans must get paid royalties, not the bots. The humans must get to decide on licensing deals, not the bots. Etc.

The humans must retain oversight and control at every step.

In this kind of world, AI is no different than an electric guitar, or a microphone, or a software package. It empowers artists, who use it to advance their craft.

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(4) Refuse to work with tech companies that are pursuing AI replacement agendas.

We must draw a line in the sand.

In negotiating deals with streaming platforms, labels can’t back down on this. They need to learn from the recent Hollywood strikes. Screenwriters demanded concessions on AI, and eventually got them—but only because they wouldn’t budge on this life-or-death issue.

That was wise. And the deal they cut is similar to what I’m suggesting for the music business.

The major labels should pull their music from streaming platforms unless the latter stop playing deceptive games in order to switch consumers to cheap AI tracks and playlists. Labels still have enormous collective power right now, and need to use it.

The labels will benefit from this, as will musicians—and, of course, consumers.

Put simply, now is the time to find a backbone.

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(5) Celebrate human artistry—nurture it, invest in it, market it, support it.

People are hungry for something in music that bots can’t deliver. That’s why live music is roaring back right now. This kind of raw human vitality is what created the music business in the first place.

Go look at the fans at a Taylor Swift concert, or that record-setting George Strait concert a few days ago—or even pay a visit to your local jazz club. That’s magic that only creative human beings can deliver.

Try holding a stadium concert with a bot on stage. Good luck with that.

All this should be obvious. I shouldn’t even have to say it. But in a world where huge record labels are buying old songs and forgetting about new music, it needs to be said. And said over and over again.

If you chose music for your vocation, this magical human quality is what you should want. It’s good for the musicians. It’s good for the fans. It’s good for the culture. And it will be good for the record labels too.

If they ignore all this and set up shop with the technocracy, they will be destroyed.

It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen eventually. It’s better for them to wake up to that reality now, before it’s too late—and while they still have power to make a difference.

There are plenty of us who will support them.