Last April, Heart On My Sleeve, featuring Drake and The Weeknd, took just a few hours to become an internet hit. However, the buzz it caused was short-lived as it was soon revealed that the track had been created with an artificial intelligence tool. As a result, it was immediately removed from online platforms. A heated debate began in the music community, covering everything: the future of artistic creation in the age of machines, the copyright of musicians, the regulation of new technologies.

A more structured form of this conversation took place yesterday at the Technopolis of the Municipality of Athens as part of the Athens Music Week, which continues until June 1st with a rich program. The title of the multinational panel was “Data Ownership and Copyright in the Dawn of Artificial Intelligence”.

Most of the participants agreed that artificial intelligence (AI) is not only a fad, but, as the example of the fake Drake and The Weeknd shows, it is also a very advanced technology that carries risks and opportunities. Lawyer Evangelia Wagena, a spokesperson for Orfium, raised the question of whether we are in a truly new phase of TN, citing the Economist’s central theme back in 2015, which also talked about the “dawn of TN.”, and in the same vein Dionysis Tsonopoulos, a professional in the music industry, recalled that we were back at the same point 40 years ago, when many were worried that synthesizers would lead to unemployment for musicians.

fears and promises

A work created by a person in collaboration with some artificial intelligence software is protected by law as intellectual property.

The commission said, almost in unison, that the prospects were great, but found that the concerns were just as significant. Six months ago, we would have spoken differently. Now we all have a tool in our hands, generative artificial intelligence, which is able to create original works of art. The advent of ChatGPT and other applications for generating synthetic content has turned everything upside down. The questions that arise require reflection: who is the creator of a work created with the help of artificial intelligence? How will this technology be controlled? How and under what conditions are the rights of authors guaranteed?

Now that music, like everything else, has finally become digital, its existence will increasingly depend on data. Ms. Wagena points out on the sidelines of the discussion that it all comes down to data input and the output (result) that we get. Music has indeed entered the era of algorithms, but the presence of humans in the equation remains fundamental. A rather important question regarding small countries such as ours is whether diversity will increase or not. In other words, how will the Greek song and its creators survive in the era of T.N.?

Fatefully, like any discussion about TN, it also revolved around the legal framework. Currently, in terms of copyright, a work created by a person in collaboration with some TN software. protected by law as intellectual property. However, a work created entirely by TN without human intervention is not an intellectual property work. The opinion was supported at the table about the need for additional special events for T.N. they are necessary as long as innovation is not stifled. In the European Union, a groundbreaking law, the Artificial Intelligence Law, is due to be passed in mid-June, but it does not provide for ChatGPT and therefore needs to be updated.

New species

In addition to the risks, of course, T.N. it also brings a lot of positive things to the music. “Administrative costs will be lowered, barriers to artistic creation will disappear, and the number of intermediaries will be reduced,” said Briton Jake Beaumont-Nesbitt of IMMF. At the same time, Spaniard José Tagazeta from the Barcelona Music Tech Hub noted as a positive fact that music is gradually becoming easier to make. “We will see new musical genres emerging from the collaboration of humans and machines, while benefiting artists in many ways,” noted other speakers, “from the creative process to marketing.” The question is what all this excessive inflation of works will do to the music itself and what will happen – as one lady in the audience said – when Spotify starts selling music created exclusively by TN on its platform. For music, even this new dawn of T.N. it has bright colors. Perhaps synthetic continuity in the headphones.