Major music artists are among nearly 800 creators signing onto a new publicity campaign that protests the unlicensed use of copyrighted work to train generative artificial intelligence models.
The campaign, dubbed “Stealing Isn’t Innovation,” has support from Bonnie Raitt, Chaka Kahn, Colbie Caillat, Common, Cyndi Lauper, Gavin DeGraw, Jason Aldean, Jason Isbell, Jennifer Hudson, LeAnn Rimes, Martina McBride, OneRepublic, Questlove, R.E.M., Rascal Flatts, Rob Thomas, The Roots and The Zombies. A-list actors like Scarlett Johansson and best-selling authors such as Jodi Picoult have also signed on.
Related
The effort is being led by the Human Artistry Campaign, a coalition founded in 2023 by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and other entertainment industry groups. This coalition is a vocal supporter of AI regulation and a fierce critic of AI products that train on human-made music, text and images without compensating creators.
“Profit-hungry technology companies, including those among the richest in the world as well as private equity-backed ventures, have copied a massive amount of creative content online without authorization or payment to those who created it,” reads a Thursday (Jan. 22) press release from the Human Artistry Campaign. “American creators are being sidelined and soon won’t be able to afford to continue producing original works if AI developers are permitted to continue stealing them without authorization to produce AI-made copies that compete directly with the original.”
The coalition’s new publicity drive is aimed at encouraging AI companies to make licensing deals with creators. The music industry began moving in that direction this fall, when AI music platform Udio entered into novel licensing agreements with Universal Music Group (UMG) and Warner Music Group (WMG), and AI service Suno signed a deal to pay WMG for its music.
Related
These deals resolved some of the claims brought in landmark copyright infringement litigation by the big three label groups against Suno and Udio in 2024. But the fight isn’t over; UMG still has active claims against Suno, and Sony has yet to settle with either AI company.
The future of AI music training is, therefore, still somewhat uncertain. Unless more settlements are reached, a judge will soon decide whether the principle of “fair use” allows Suno and Udio to conduct “transformative” training using unlicensed works. This is a legal quandary at the core of dozens of AI copyright cases across the country, and, as of now, there’s no controlling court precedent providing clear guidance.
