Sony Music has 75,000 items removed in fight against AI deepfakes
As the music industry continues to fight against the threat of artificial intelligence, Sony Music has revealed it has removed over 75,000 deepfakes of its artists’ tracks.
The record company revealed the scale of its battle against the generative AI replicas in comments submitted to the government’s ongoing inquiry into the matter, and its statement was first reported by the Financial Times.
With the back catalogues of the company’s most prevalent signings, including Queen and Harry Styles, most at risk from deepfakes, they said: “Sony Music unfortunately has extensive experience with digital replicas,” before warning that the sinister threat could result in “direct commercial harm to legitimate recording artists, including UK artists”.
Although the figure of 75,000 deepfakes already seems alarming, it is alleged that this could, in fact, only be a tiny proportion of the scale of AI recordings currently plaguing the music industry.
Sony Music’s most recent comments come after previously sharing a damning letter on the use of the technology and amid an ongoing row between artists and the UK government after Westminster announced a consultation on whether existing music should be used in the training of future AI models.
Many artists, including Paul McCartney and Elton John, have railed against the proposals. The former Beatles, in particular, urged them not to go ahead, arguing that AI would create a “Wild West” in the industry.
For the part of Sony Music’s own stance, they expanded further in their statement: “The best way to meet the needs of creators and performers is for copyright works to be licensed by labels or aggregators for AI training in a free market, based on exclusive rights. The UK government’s role should be to preserve a strong copyright framework that encourages individual licensing in the free market.”
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