Meta and Universal Music Group (UMG) announced on Monday the extension of its multi-year music licensing agreement that enables users to share songs from UMG's music library across Meta's platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Horizon, Threads and WhatsApp) without violating copyright.
The most notable thing in regards to the recent agreement is that it states that the 2 firms will address “unauthorized AI-generated content.” This means songs scraped by AI systems, often without the consent of the unique creators. Artists and songwriters are increasingly fighting AI fakery, and their work is getting used by AI firms to coach their models.
“We look ahead to continuing to work together to deal with unauthorized, AI-generated content that will affect artists and songwriters in order that UMG can proceed to guard their rights now and in the longer term,” said Michael Nash, chief digital officer and executive vice chairman at UMG, in an announcement.
The partnership follows TikTok's dispute with UMG earlier this yr when the label's music catalog was faraway from the short-form video app. In an announcement released in February, UMG said emphasized its concerns about AI and online safety on the platform. The two firms reached a truce in May and allowed music from artists reminiscent of Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift back on TikTok.
The recent agreement also follows an AI-related lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (which represents UMG and other major labels) against music startups Udio and Suno. The suit alleges the 2 firms trained their AI models on copyrighted music. Earlier this month, Sudo publicly admitted to using copyrighted songs, but claimed it was legal under fair use.
Meta now claims to pursue an ethical approach to AI music and only uses generative AI models (AudioCraft, MusicGen and Jasco), that are trained with “Meta’s own and specially licensed music”, in accordance with his websiteHowever, as TechCrunch's Kyle Wiggers notes, Meta has acknowledged that AudioCraft could potentially be abused to create a deepfake of a voice.
In addition, that is the primary time that WhatsApp users will give you the chance to share licensed music from UMG throughout the quick messaging app, which also includes Threads, Meta's own social networking app and X's direct competitor (Twitter).
The partnership between Meta and UMG began in 2017, when a serious music company first allowed Facebook users to upload and share videos featuring songs from its music catalog.
