Amazon and Universal Music Group (UMG) announced their expansion of their partnership on Monday. Among other topics, the two entities stress that the collaboration will focus on advancements in artist-centered principles, including increased fraud protection. Despite the partnership agreements between the two companies, the new partnership expands its scope to include product innovation, exclusive content rights with UMG artists, and daunting policies to address illegal artificial intelligence (AI) content issues in the music industry.
Amazon and UMG solve AI problems in the music industry
In a press release, UMG announced an expanded collaboration with Amazon, which addresses several issues in the music industry, including AI-generated content that mimics artists’ voices and similarities. In a joint statement, the two companies highlighted a “common commitment” to promote and maintain human art.
“UMG and Amazon will also work together to resolve illegal AI-generated content and protect fraud and crime,” the statement added.
Deepfakes or AI-generated music similar to artists’ voices and behaviors is growing in the music industry. Last year, an AI-generated song called Heart On My Sleeve, which contains the sounds of Drake and Weeknd, was released on Spotify, Apple Music and other music streaming platforms. As listeners and platforms thought it was a real song, the song quickly passed the chart. However, remove the platform after it is known to be created using AI.
This is one of many examples of such a bad actor using AI tools to generate music in the form of a pop artist to generate revenue. Since AI-generated music is a legal gray area, authorities cannot take strong measures to protect artists.
In the announcement, UMG and Amazon acknowledged the disruption of AI-generated content and said they hope to collaborate on the development of innovative products to identify and tag synthetic content on the Amazon platform.
It is worth noting that earlier this year, Meta signed a similar agreement extension to address unauthorized AI-generated content to protect human artists and songwriters. However, the announcement does not reveal further details about the steps the company plans to take to minimize deep risks in music.
