Transcription
Hello friends and welcome back to the channel. So, a couple weeks ago, I made a very simple Facebook post. It simply said, "There is no ethical use of Sunno."
Now, as you can imagine, I received a lot of comments in agreement and a lot of comments pushing back. Someone said, "There's also no ethical use of Facebook, iPhones, or any tech that takes advantage of exploited labor practices. Art is theft. Embrace the technology and have fun. AI isn't copying songs. It's learning patterns."
And then someone else came on and framed it in this way. They said, "Me having access to resources with which to learn an instrument and how to produce music is a sign of my privilege, and that what AI is doing is it's helping disadvantaged people make music who otherwise just, like, wouldn't be able to do it."
So, in this video, I'm going to do my best to respectfully counter these arguments, and I'm going to give three broad reasons why I think musicians should not use Sunno and other generative AI tools like it. Reason number one, the ethical problems with Sunno as a company. Reason two, the negative effects of using AI on cognition versus the positive effects of actually learning how to play an instrument. And reason number three, there are more free resources with which to learn how to play an instrument and produce music the right way than ever before. So, let's get into it.
First, the ethical problems with Sunno as a company. The key issue here is that Sunno used more or less the entirety of recorded music to train its models, including tens of millions of recordings, specifically copyrighted works owned by both major record labels and millions of independent artists. Now, Sunno admitted to doing this. They settled their lawsuit with Warner Music, and they have agreed to restructure their business to pay royalties moving forward and to allow artists to have more control over the use of their music and likeness. However, before they settled, they first tried to claim that this process was covered under fair use. In fact, Timberland, who has an entire section in his Wikipedia page dedicated just to plagiarism, was like jumping in my comments on TikTok arguing that this was just fair use.
So, what is fair use? Well, according to copyrightalliance.org, you can use copyrighted works for the sake of criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research purposes. And there are four key factors used to determine if a given usage of copyrighted material is considered fair use. Factor one, the purpose and character of the use. If a use is commercial in nature, it is less likely to be considered fair use than if it's going to be in a non-commercial application. Factor two, the nature of the copyrighted work. Whether the work is creative versus fact-based. Use of more creative or imaginative underlying work is less likely to support a claim of fair use, while the use of factual work would be more likely to support a claim of fair use. Factor three, the amount used. Where the amount used is very small in relation to the copyrighted work, this factor will favor a finding of fair use. But where the amount used is not insignificant, this factor will favor the copyright owner. This factor also considers the qualitative amount of the copyrighted work used. If the portion used was the heart of the work, it's likely not going to be covered under fair use. Factor four, the effect of the use on the market. The fourth factor not only considers whether the defendant's activities may harm the current market, but also considers whether the use may cause any harm to potential markets that could be exploited by the copyright owner if the use were to become widespread.
Now, it seems obvious to me that given that Sunno's use was commercial, was creative material, and would certainly negatively impact the market and value of past and future copyright-protected music, that this was not fair use. Not only does this lower the value of the source material, by creating endless derivative works at a scale unimaginable pre-AI, the existence and distribution of AI works created by these models dilutes the revenue share of the same artists whose intellectual property was used in the first place. See, most streaming platforms, including the industry leader Spotify, use a pro-rata royalty distribution model in which artists are paid based on the percentage market share of their streams each month, not individual users' listening habits. So, whether you listen to major label artists or not, they get the majority of your subscription payment every month. And that's a whole another topic that we can save for a future day. But that means that every AI artist that gets millions of monthly listeners dilutes the revenue of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of independent artists who are trying to make an honest living as a musician.
Sunno has settled a lawsuit and partnered with Warner Music in order to try to write these wrongs, but in my opinion, the damage is irredeemable, and they should have been put out of business from what would have amounted to billions of dollars in copyright infringement fines. And all that works out great for the major labels, but the only recourse for indie artists, however, is multiple class-action lawsuits. One of which was filed by popular YouTuber, Top Music Attorney, or Delgato Entertainment Law. And in an interview with Fant, she lists several egregious examples of copyright infringement suffered by plaintiffs in the case. "How many of these, like, specific instances are you catching where you're seeing, like, these extreme similarities? We pointed to over a hundred examples where all these different independent sources were like, 'Hey, we just saw Sunno do this. We just saw UDIO do that.' So, we cited to all them. But actually, two months before we filed our amended complaint in the Sunno case, someone messaged me, right, one of our followers, and he goes, 'Um, one of the songs that that spit out had Zoven's, the music producer's, producer sample in the new output.' So, the point just being, like, it's a continued thing. When, when Sunno came and filed its motion to dismiss, like, 'You can't prove that Sunno has ever created something based on the music it was trained on.' We go, 'We pointed to a hundred different examples. What are you talking about?'" To join the lawsuit, check the link in the description of this video, and I highly recommend that you watch the rest of that video because it's kind of horrifying.
So, what does all of this mean? It means that Sunno, in its current form, should not legally exist. It acknowledged in a settlement that it improperly used copyright-protected intellectual property, and its product would not be as commercially viable without the dataset that it stole. So, what if you've used Sunno? I would argue that if you've been using Sunno and you didn't know that it was created this way, you've done nothing wrong. However, once you do know this information, and you're someone who cares about your own intellectual property maintaining whatever commercial value it has left, you should stop using Sunno. Stop engaging with works created or supplemented by it. And certainly do not support artists who use it in their creative workflow. It is, in my humble opinion, inherently unethical.
And now, some of you might say, "But what about other unethical platforms like Meta, Google, Spotify, etc., etc.?" Once we have a viable alternative to those platforms, I will gladly switch. But in the meantime, they could technically be reformed and continue to exist in more ethical ways. To me, there is a categorical difference between a product like Sunno and a product like Meta, like Facebook and Instagram, because Facebook could exist and operate in an ethical way. Its existence does not depend on intellectual property theft. Even though Zuckerberg is known to have stolen intellectual property in the early days of Facebook's founding, it didn't have to happen that way. The idea could be executed by humans simply writing code. Sunno could not be the product that it is without mass copyright infringement. Full stop. Period. End of story. It is a plagiarism machine built by copyright infringement. It demands a certain cognitive dissonance to ignore that, especially as a professional musician.
And what usually happens once you make this argument is people just say, "Well, it's convenient and it's the way the industry is going, so I'm going to use it anyway." That's kind of what I was seeing in the Facebook comments on that post. And while I do understand that sentiment, especially in regard to technology in general, I feel like this is a particularly damaging product. I will die on this hill.
Reason number two, the effects of using AI versus learning to play an instrument on cognitive health. Offloading cognitive load onto artificial intelligence platforms, including large language models like ChatGPT, is harmful to cognitive development and function. MIT released a study that showed reliance on AI for cognitive tasks, in the case of the study, writing SAT essays, eroded critical thinking, and that the subjects in their study who used ChatGPT had the lowest brain engagement and consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. Now, that paper has not yet been peer-reviewed, but the authors found the results so alarming that they felt the ethical thing to do was to release it ahead of review. It's linked in the description of this video if you'd like to read it yourself.
While Sunno is not a large language model like ChatGPT, it isn't hard to imagine that using it as a supplement to or substitute for learning an instrument, learning music theory, learning engineering, production, and post-production skills would similarly have fewer positive results on the brain in comparison to actually spending the time to attain those skills. And I say that because there are many studies showing that learning an instrument improves neuroplasticity, cognitive function, early brain development, and can actually ease anxiety and depression. Removing the aspects of making music that require intense focus, fine motor skill development, and a theoretical understanding of the process removes these benefits along with the built-in life skills of patience, grit, and perseverance that are inherent to becoming good at anything. This may seem counterintuitive, but it is good to suck at things, and it is okay to make bad music in the grand scheme of developing a new skill set. In fact, here's me sucking in 2010. Roll the video.
No finesse, horrible stage presence, and the most heinous part is me running an acoustic-electric guitar through a wall pedal. Yeah, I did that.
To wrap up this section, choosing to actually learn an instrument or develop other skills as a musician offers opportunities to collaborate with other humans. If we zoom out to the macro level and take an honest inventory of what technology has done to us, it has made us the loneliest, most depressed generation in the history of our species. At the same time, it has made us the most interconnected generation in the history of our species. And while the communities that we develop online really can bring people together, they can give marginalized people a sense of belonging and offer a voice to those who can't be heard otherwise, they really only go so far. They are a simulacrum of the real-life organic connections that we evolved to cherish over the course of thousands of years. So, one of the most beautiful things about making music in the real world is what each unique voice contributes. Relying on Sunno to be every facet within a production robs users of the chance to collaborate with others, to bring an earned skill set into an environment where it can be both nurtured by those who have more experience and can be nurturing to those who have less experience. And the beauty of that is that you grow both as a student and an instructor, as a group. When you operate that way, it's magical. It's spiritual. And it's one of the first ways we learn to express ourselves collectively. And we should not take that for granted.
Reason number three, there are more free resources to actually learn musical skills than ever before. The argument that Sunno is ultimately a net positive because it gives marginalized people who don't have the time, money, or other resources the ability to make music doesn't really hold up in my opinion because you have to intentionally ignore all of the free resources that currently exist with which to learn instrument technique, music theory, production, engineering, and every other skill needed to produce music without AI. But all these tools require you to spend your time and attention to use them. Now, this kind of ties back into the ethical argument from before. Because if you are unwilling to put in the time and energy to acquire a skill set that you don't have, why should you get to use the product of literally every other artist's effort as a shortcut to creating things? That is exactly what using to make music does. All those other artists, regardless of their socioeconomic status and access to resources, somehow found a way to produce their art and distribute it through the proper channels. And they did all this only to have it abused now for commercial purposes. You are not entitled to use their skills that they earned, either financially, artistically, or otherwise.
Think about this. If Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Eminem, Jimi Hendrix, Ozzy Osbourne, Shania Twain, and Prince could all somehow overcome escaping poverty, psychological or physical abuse, or a combination of all three, and develop their craft without Sunno or even the internet, why can't other people do it today? When I was a teenager, YouTube was more or less just a place to watch people hurt themselves. "You okay?" Now, there are world-class instructors giving away high-quality tutorials on instrument technique, music theory, music history, as well as free software, instruments, books, samples. I got my foundational education in music theory from Rick Beato's channel. And that's just one small segment of the material that he's covered for free. Not to mention the interviews, music history, song breakdowns, all that stuff. And he's not the only one. I regularly learn for free from Tom Bovac, Guthrie Trapp, Rhett Shull, Adam Neely, Pensado's Place, UAD's Office Hours, Michael Keithson, Nikki V, Jeff Snyder, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many more. In fact, I'll leave links to all their channels in the description of this video so that you can take advantage.
And there are also tons of free music production DAWs and software tools like BandLab, Audacity, GarageBand for Mac, Cakewalk, ProTools Intro, and more. Many of these come with virtual instruments that you can use to program MIDI tracks, so you don't even technically need to know how to play an instrument or have one. But all of these require some level of time and energy upfront to learn. So, if you have a computer, which you kind of need to use Sunno anyway, then you also have access to all of these tools to both learn skills and apply them. The excuse of "I don't have resources" is simply "You don't have patience." And just because you don't have the patience doesn't mean you and Sunno get to capitalize on those of us who did.
So, in conclusion, don't use Sunno. We all have to focus our energy on figuring out ways to navigate an industry where artists almost always end up being exploited. It's been going on since music became a commodity, but has progressively gotten worse over time. So, what is my solution? Like, I've kind of talked a lot. I think at least one solution would be to have a platform that does at least the following three things. Number one, bans AI music. Now, I'm not a software engineer, nor am I a machine learning expert, so I don't know what would be involved in doing that, but that is very important. iHeartRadio just announced, I think last week, that AI music is no longer allowed on their platform, but we need Spotify to get on board with that as well. Number two, it uses a user-centric royalty distribution system in which your monthly subscription is only paid to the artists you listen to. This would allow fans to directly control which artists get their money every month and would be the closest thing to buying the music that you like that a streaming platform could offer. SoundCloud actually does this, but unfortunately, their UI isn't the best, so people choose Spotify, but the point is, it is possible. And number three, it gives artists control over their payment structure. Do you want your album to be available immediately for streaming, or do you want to paywall some tracks to maybe get a little bit of money upfront for all the work that you've put into it? Bandcamp's "Name Your Price" model is great. I've actually used that for my most recent release. But what if you could combine the streaming and direct payment into the same platform so that it gives you flexibility to make money on the front end of your releases before ultimately switching over to streaming?
All right, that's it. That's my take. If you like this video or learned something from it, please hit subscribe and like. If you didn't like it, tell me why in the comments. Let me know. If you'd like to support my channel or my music generally, consider buying me a coffee. There's a link in the description where you can do that. And if you don't want to do that, head over to Bandcamp and check out my latest release. There is a link in the description. It's called "US Highway 50." I wrote it about a really cool road trip that I took that kind of changed my life. Or at the very least, head over to Spotify and stream it via the link in the description. All right, till next time. Later.