The independent North American music creator community has submitted comments to the United States Copyright Office regarding its latest discussion on Generative Artificial Intelligence.
The comments were made by MCNA, the Songwriters Guild of America (SGA) and the Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL), and by the individual music creators Ashley Irwin, Rick Carnes and Eddie Schwartz.
Our organizations are highly supportive of the use of Artificial Intelligence technologies as tools to assist human creators in stretching the boundaries of human creativity. Our concerns today focus on clarifying under US copyright and intellectual property laws that the blatant misuse (i.e. “theft”) of our copyrighted musical compositions – with neither consent, credit nor compensation – by their wholesale, unauthorized ingestion into generative AI systems to artificially create infringing derivative works, represent illegal and actionable acts of infringement.”
The submission noted a number of specific areas of concern, providing detailed descriptions and potential solutions to each. These areas included:
- Clarification of creators’ rights under section 106 of the US Copyright Act
- Clarification of fair use standards as applied to ingestion and output by
generative AI systems - Transparency, the public’s right to know, and data tracking requirements
- Market consolidation, collective licensing and antitrust exemptions
- Uniform protection of ancillary rights including rights of publicity
- Copyrightability of AI Generated Musical Works
In closing, the signatories thanked the USCO for affording the independent American music creator community the opportunity to speak with its own voice.
We also stressed the importance of addressing “comments previously submitted by those who appear to value windfall profit over economic fairness and cultural advancement”.
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