On April 1, more than 200 music notables (including Billie Eilish, Stevie Wonder, 3 Balvin and Jon Bon Jovi) of the Artists Rights Alliance issued an open letter warning against the “predatory use of AI” in the music industry. The letter cites AI’s capability to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights and “destroy the music ecosystem.” The letter further calls on tech companies, AI developers and digital music services to pledge that they won’t develop or use AI-powered technology the undermines songwriters and artists or prevents them from earning compensation for their art. What are your views and/or concerns relative to artificial intelligence and its impact on music and sound?
AI certainly has the power to disrupt the music ecosystem and maybe and yes, maybe even destroy it. There needs to be guardrails of some kind to prevent copyright infringement as well as unauthorized uses of image, likeness, and sound. It is unfair to artists, especially if they are not compensated for any of those uses. It is even more precarious in the ad world where a potential infringement or unauthorized sound alike could result in huge lawsuits and penalties for brands.
How do new technologies, markets and platforms figure in your creative/business plans. For example, with NFTs gaining momentum, do you foresee related music and sound work resulting? Same for VR/AR? Will increased content spurred on by the emergence of additional streaming platforms open up music and sound opportunities for you? Any growth prospects in the advertising and/or entertainment industry?
More streaming platforms that are ad supported present more opportunities for ad content. Some ads are done specially for that medium. Music plays a role there so as consumers look to less full subscription based streaming platforms for there viewing, and more ad supported platforms for either a lower subscription cost or even $0, ads and ad music opportunities will see growth.
How has your role–or that of your business or company–evolved in recent years? What do you like most about that evolution? What do you like least?
There is an emphasis in using music in new and unique ways. Be it in the digital and social spaces or experiential ideas. Whether it is finding or creating the right track for long form branded content or a song or an artist to partner with for an interactive experience, brands are looking to make the most out musics connectivity to audiences.
What was the biggest creative challenge posed to you by a recent project? Tell us about that project, why the challenge was particularly noteworthy or gratifying to overcome, or what valuable lesson you learned from it.
A project that is soon to be released posed a very big creative challenge in that we were tasked to create tracks that were to feature the “sounds” given off by plants recorded by a device that specifically captures these unique plant vibrations and turns them into musical sounds. Going into the project we had no idea what it would sound like or if would even work. Luckily, the sounds were quite interesting and we found a composer that not only created beautiful music adaptations for the sounds , but had also worked with this device before so it turned out spectacularly well.
What recent work are you most proud of and why? Or what recent work (advertising or entertainment)–your own or that of others–has struck a responsive chord with you?
I’m really proud to be a part of the work our agency has done for The Foundation to Combat Antisemitism. It is really powerful work that addresses a real and growing problem in the in the country and the music in the ads helps set the tone for the message to stop antisemitism and all hate .
A growing number of superstar artists and songwriters have been selling their music rights/catalogs in megabuck deals. What will be the ripple effect of this on music creatively and from a business standpoint relative to the advertising, film, TV and streaming platform markets?
When artists sell their catalogs to major labels and publishers, those labels and publishers are looking to recoup the money on those deals as best as they can. Advertising is one of the quickest ways to get them a return on their investment. We may find that they may be more eager to make deals than they had been in the past for those catalogs.
