Is This What We Want? - AI Protest album

[Wish]

Can we expect CD or vinyl release?

[Gabby]

Literally "background music".

[Sandy Shaw]

A clever idea.

Contributor Nathan Fake sounds dodgy under the circumstances... (or would do if we could hear him).

[Gabby]

I'm not sure I've ever dreamt about PSB, but last night I did. Probably to do with Hymn and now this protest album, I dreamed they dropped a whole new album out of the blue, which of course was very exciting. There really wasn't much content in the dream but the gist was that the album was full of bangers (so in a sense like what happened with Electric, only they released this dream album with no fanfare or pre-warning whatsoever).

[markus]

They better hurry before stripped off their "electronic pioneers award"

After recently watched the Milli Vanilli movie, pure luck and "organic intelligence" a.ka a record company, gave most of the people on the list their fame and fortune. What Netflix did to Kate Bush's career AI can do too. It's beneath N&C to be associated with this.

[seriously]

Can we expect CD or vinyl release?

Limited edition coloured 12xvinyl box set. $10 000.

[jules]

A full album of silent tracks by psb would still sound much better than a lot of today's crap.

[glennjridge]

All the dinosaurs are trembling, young artists may be already experimenting with AI's possibilities.

Yes, AI is a great tool for those who lack the talent to compose.

Markus is right...lack of talent is neither her nor there with AI. its the future. its a tool and its going to be incorporated into every area of life. young people who have zero singing ability and cant play an instrument will have top 10 hits and we sounding like the old people we are will say, "they lack the talent to compose", and they will just say "yep" as the money flows in.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

There is a certain irony to this.

Pet Shop Boys formed during the dawning of the synthesizer age - a new era of technology and production, which replaced the traditional need for instruments to be manually played, and even allowed for these new synthetic sounds to be digitally modified, enhanced and programmed via technology. Yet now, they are at the forefront of protests about new synthetic sounds being digitally modified, enhanced and programmed via technology.

Every musician has learned and been inspired from what went before - whether they "owned the rights" to what they learned from or not. Why begrudge that opportunity to AI? It would be like being a bass player from the 70s complaining that people were inspired by his riffs and were now creating blinky-plonky spin-offs of them in the 80s. Music is better off having both the natural and synthetic options available, and so it will be in the future - Peter Hook wasn't suddenly irrelevant in the 1980s because of synth bass presets on a keyboard, was he?

Getting in the way of inevitable progress seems petty and pointless, especially after having been champions of technological innovation in the past. All they're doing here is risking tarnishing their legacy and appearing more as opportunists of their era, than as the genuine advocates of technology in music, that they're heralded as.

Retro.

[TallThinMan]

All the dinosaurs are trembling, young artists may be already experimenting with AI's possibilities.

Yes, AI is a great tool for those who lack the talent to compose.

Markus is right...lack of talent is neither her nor there with AI. its the future. its a tool and its going to be incorporated into every area of life. young people who have zero singing ability and cant play an instrument will have top 10 hits and we sounding like the old people we are will say, "they lack the talent to compose", and they will just say "yep" as the money flows in.

What money is that then? Actually what will happen is that streaming services that are already at saturation point will be flooded with hundreds of thousands of AI generated releases, further diluting the attention pool and the royalties pot and further widening the gap between the likes of Taylor Swift and everyone else.

It’s simple supply and demand. The more you produce of something, the less value it has.

[Dog]

Greetings,

There is a certain irony to this.

Pet Shop Boys formed during the dawning of the synthesizer age - a new era of technology and production, which replaced the traditional need for instruments to be manually played, and even allowed for these new synthetic sounds to be digitally modified, enhanced and programmed via technology. Yet now, they are at the forefront of protests about new synthetic sounds being digitally modified, enhanced and programmed via technology.

Every musician has learned and been inspired from what went before - whether they "owned the rights" to what they learned from or not. Why begrudge that opportunity to AI? It would be like being a bass player from the 70s complaining that people were inspired by his riffs and were now creating blinky-plonky spin-offs of them in the 80s. Music is better off having both the natural and synthetic options available, and so it will be in the future - Peter Hook wasn't suddenly irrelevant in the 1980s because of synth bass presets on a keyboard, was he?

Getting in the way of inevitable progress seems petty and pointless, especially after having been champions of technological innovation in the past. All they're doing here is risking tarnishing their legacy and appearing more as opportunists of their era, than as the genuine advocates of technology in music, that they're heralded as.

Retro.

Isn’t this about remuneration though? Why should AI companies be able to skim Neil’s voice for free? In the era you describe above, Drake couldn’t interpolate West End girls without giving proper recompense. Pet Shop Boys gave Dave Lambert a writing credit for sampling Fire’s Father’s Name Is Dad in I didn’t get where I am today. I for one don’t want Pet Shop Boys’ catalogue to be confused and diluted by an infinite number of AI produced recordings which mine and ape their sound.

[retrofuturist]

G'day Dog,

Isn’t this about remuneration though? Why should AI companies be able to skim Neil’s voice for free? In the era you describe above, Drake couldn’t interpolate West End girls without giving proper recompense. Pet Shop Boys gave Dave Lambert a writing credit for sampling Fire’s Father’s Name Is Dad in I didn’t get where I am today. I for one don’t want Pet Shop Boys’ catalogue to be confused and diluted by an infinite number of AI produced recordings which mine and ape their sound.

Yes, but what you're talking about is already covered under copyright law.

"Aping" another's sound is not a copyright violation, and where would music be if it was? Pet Shop Boys started out by "aping" Bobby O.

Retro.

[Dog]

G'day Dog,

Isn’t this about remuneration though? Why should AI companies be able to skim Neil’s voice for free? In the era you describe above, Drake couldn’t interpolate West End girls without giving proper recompense. Pet Shop Boys gave Dave Lambert a writing credit for sampling Fire’s Father’s Name Is Dad in I didn’t get where I am today. I for one don’t want Pet Shop Boys’ catalogue to be confused and diluted by an infinite number of AI produced recordings which mine and ape their sound.

Yes, but what you're talking about is already covered under copyright law.

"Aping" another's sound is not a copyright violation, and where would music be if it was? Pet Shop Boys started out by "aping" Bobby O.

Retro.

But it’s proposed changes to these copyright laws which is the issue here. The changes would allow AI companies to train their models on copyrighted works free of charge.

[retrofuturist]

Greetings,

But it’s proposed changes to these copyright laws which is the issue here. The changes would allow AI companies to train their models on copyrighted works free of charge.

Yes, and I'm saying that people "train" themselves listening to other people's works, whether they have purchased any license or paid any royalties to do so. There is no "copyright" claim in being listened to, and someone (or something) learning what they can from your recordings. You can copyright recorded music (i.e. samples), you can copyright lyrics, and you can copyright melody. You can't copyright a hypothetical sound palette and put it beyond emulation.

Retro.

[Dog]

Greetings,

But it’s proposed changes to these copyright laws which is the issue here. The changes would allow AI companies to train their models on copyrighted works free of charge.

Yes, and I'm saying that people "train" themselves listening to other people's works, whether they have purchased any license or paid any royalties to do so. There is no "copyright" claim in being listened to, and someone (or something) learning what they can from your recordings. You can copyright recorded music (i.e. samples), you can copyright lyrics, and you can copyright melody. You can't copyright a hypothetical sound palette and put it beyond emulation.

Retro.

Isn’t what AI does closer to sampling, though, rather than simply “inspiring”?