Grimes slams culture of “gatekeeping” in modern music industry: “Copyright sucks – art is a conversation”
Speaking at the annual International Music Summit in Ibiza on April 28th, Grimes delivered a keynote speech concerning artificial intelligence, technology, and music rights management. During the speech – moderated by BBC Radio 1’s Jaguar – Grimes addressed the damaging culture of “gatekeeping in music”.
“I feel strongly that there’s way too much gatekeeping in music,” she began. “Copyright sucks. Art is a conversation with everyone that’s come before us. Intertwining it with the ego is a modern concept. The music industry has been defined by lawyers, and that strangles creativity.”
She added: “I think everything about copyright is problematic,” she added. “There’s too much top down control. In the early days of TikTok there was a lot of weird music going viral, but now the gatekeeping stranglehold means less interesting stuff coming out.”
Grimes also opened up about her support for AI music technology. She recently gave her consent to fans looking to use her voice to create new AI music as long as she receives at least half of the royalties from such tracks. “It’s cool to be fused [with] a machine and I like the idea of open sourcing all art and killing copyright,” she said. “Why shouldn’t people be able to use my voice? Something cool and beautiful might come from it. I think this might be one of the coolest times to be an artist ever. We’re just at the start of the internet.”
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