• Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’ve written music for many years, mostly dance stuff. Of course I’m concerned that AI will come for my job too very soon.

    I was thinking about your example… I don’t think the age of the works is a factor. It’s about similarity. For example, I decided to start switch things up and start writting really savage, heavy ‘big beat’ stuff a few months ago. It’s heavily, heavily inspired by The Prodigy because they’ve been musical heroes of mine from a young age (lucky enough to have seen them live back in the day), nobody else really writes music like that, so it’s my only reference for ‘savage heavy big beat’.

    None of the 4 tracks I’ve finished sound remotely like any track by The Prodigy, but the first thing most people say when hearing it is “wow that sounds like The Prodigy”. While someone somewhere will bitch about it and say I’m not being creative enough or I should have my own sound, no-one in their right mind would say I’m breaching copyright law by writing brand new music influenced by their distinct sound that I’ve absorbed through decades of listening.

    If I really wanted to, I could do the same with many artist’s sound in a short space of time by focussing on it. Perhaps a bit ethically dubious but still not illegal.

    If I trained an AI model to ‘absorb’ music from artists that I’ve purchased, and told it to spit out new music that resembled their sound without copying it, would that be illegal? It’s an interesting debate imo.

    • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      While someone somewhere will bitch about it and say I’m not being creative enough or I should have my own sound

      There isn’t an artist dead or alive that doesn’t use another artist as inspiration or even “borrow” from them. I’m sure The Prodigy has bands and music that they draw on to make their stuff. You probably already know all of this but you keep doing your shit man and screw the haters.

      • Bleeping Lobster@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Exactly, we’re all stood on the shoulders of giants. Plus, The Prodigy are notorious and proud sample / sound / melody pirates, so I’m just following in their footsteps haha. Thanks for saying that though!

        • GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          You can do what I did in my 3rd grade report on Egypt. I put quotes at the beginning of my paper, copied word for word the introduction to a n “Egypt for Kids” book and closed quotes. Didn’t plagiarize- quoted all my sources…

          Teacher had a parent conference the next week…

    • d3Xt3r@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I was excited to see a mention of “Big Beat”, but saddened to see no mention of “Fatboy Slim”. :(