AI Destroyed Civilization and All I Got Was This Lousy Label

With fanfare last week (or was it sad trombones), the “IFPI, RIAA, A2IM, WIN, IMPALA, The Grammys, SAG-AFTRA & Human Artistry Campaign, representing a broad spectrum of recorded music creators and companies around the world,” introduced labels for AI music. The announcement was amplified by headlines throughout the US media, from People magazine to the Wall Street Journal.

Is this really all we get, a sticker? The announcement didn’t even indicate who would be responsible for attaching this tag to AI tracks, and the streaming platforms immediately volunteered it would not be them. Their trade organization Digital Media Association said in a statement, “DIMA has long advocated for the creators, owners, and distributors of music to provide accurate and timely metadata on all music released and distributed to streaming services.” (My italics.) Spotify, Amazon, Apple and YouTube do not, by DIMA’s terminology, fall into these categories of responsibility.

Not that identifying AI-generated …