LEGAL ENGLISH IN THE NEWS – MAJOR RECORD LABELS SUE AI MUSIC GENERATORS
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA , a trade group for record labels) said it filed twin lawsuits (két egymáshoz kapcsolódó keresetet benyújtott) Monday against Suno AI and Uncharted Labs Inc., the developer of Udio AI, on behalf of Universal Music Group NV, Warner Music Group Corp. and Sony Music Entertainment. The complaints (panaszok) allege (állítják) the companies are unlawfully training their AI models on massive amounts of copyrighted sound recordings.
In addition, RIAA claims authentic producer tags appear on some of the music coming out of Suno and Udio, and that people who use the services have generated sounds very similar to numerous artist-made songs, including The Temptations’ My Girl, Green Day’s American Idiot and Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas. They have also produced vocals that are indistinguishable from (megkülönböztethetetlen) famous recording artists, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, according to the RIAA. The RIAA is seeking damages of (kártérítést követel) as much as $150,000 “per work infringed.” That could amount to (összegre rúg) potentially billions of dollars.
Suno and Udio are among a new crop of startups that use generative AI to automate the music-making process. People can type in a short written prompt, like “an electro-pop song about strawberries,” and software from either company will spit out human-sounding music in seconds. In order to build their AI systems, the companies must first train their software on enormous datasets (óriási adathalmazokon képezik a szoftvert), which can be made up of many millions of individual pieces of information.
Suno’s technology is “transformative,” and is “designed to generate completely new outputs, not to memorize and regurgitate pre-existing content (visszaadja a már létező tartalmat),” co-founder and CEO Mikey Shulman said in a statement. That’s why the company doesn’t allow users to include the names of musical artists in their written prompts when creating songs, he explained. Udio didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In the music industry, artists and labels see AI as a potential existential threat (létfenyegetés). Hundreds of musicians, including Billie Eilish, Miranda Lambert and Aerosmith signed an open letter in April via the nonprofit Artist Rights Alliance, urging AI developers, tech companies and others to halt the use (megállítani a használatát) of AI “to infringe upon (megsérteni) and devalue the rights of (leértékelni a jogait) human artists.” At the same time, record labels are scrambling to balance the creative potential of the fast-moving technology while also protecting artists’ rights and their own profits
The RIAA alleges that Suno and Udio, whether through an investor or in-house executives, have essentially admitted to using (beismerte a használatát) copyrighted material to develop their models. An early investor in Suno said he probably wouldn’t have invested in the startup if it had deals with labels when it started, according to the complaint. He said that defending against lawsuits (védekezni a perek ellen) was a necessary risk.
Generative AI companies have plausible fair use defenses ( elfogadható szabad felhasználással kapcsolatos védekezés) for using works as training data, said Pamela Samuelson, a digital copyright expert and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. But she said courts might look at music differently than they would other works such as computer code, text or images.
“The data type might actually matter,” Samuelson said. “I could see courts distinguishing based on that.”
VOCABULARY – SZÓSZEDET
to file (twin) lawsuits – (két) keresetet benyújtani
complaint – panasz
to allege – állítani (még nem bizonyított)
indistinguishable from – megkülönböztethetetlen
to seek (sought, sought) damages of xxx “per work infringed” – xxx összegű kártérítést követelni “művenkénti jogsértés” esetén
to amount to billions of dollars – milliárd dollárra rúg
to train the software on enormous datasets – óriási adathalmazokon képezni a szoftvert
regurgitate pre- existing content- visszaadni a már létező tartalmat
existential threat – létfenyegetés
to halt the use of AI – megállítani a mesterséges intelligencia használatát
to infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists – megsérteni és leértékelni az emberi művészek jogait
to admit to using – beismerni a használatot
to defend against lawsuits – védekezni a perek ellen
plausible fair use defenses – elfogadható szabad felhasználással kapcsolatos védekezés
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