Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 751 posts

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#291

Post by RIMR »

AI-generated music is novel, but like images and videos, I think of it almost exclusively as a novelty. I haven't heard any AI-generated music that I like in a real way. Just stuff that sounds like something I like.

The real value AI has for music is discovery. I've been using Gemini and ChatGPT to build playlists based on music I already like, and discovering lots of fun new tracks. I can be really specific about what kind of music I like and don't like. I can show it a playlist I already made, and ask it to make one like it, but with completely different artists. It's insanely useful!

But these kinds of tools would just expand how many different artists Spotify has to pay from my streaming, and that doesn't do the same thing as shoving cheap mass-produced slop down our throats, so it isn't surprising what they offer us.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#292

Post by butlike »

peab wrote: post #181
anthonypasq wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if no one wants the slop, then its not competition. the problem is that people do actually want the slop and artists are mad about it.

but people do want it. people who listen to top 40 want slop. most people want slop

At least top 40 has a room of engineers and at least they're getting some compensation. Yes, I understand splits are a bloodbath.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#293

Post by JohnFen »

lukevp wrote: post #225
drittich wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a musician and I don't think it's that amusing. IMO this isn't an "AI can't be art" discussion. It's about the fact that AI can be used to extract value from other artists' work without consent, and then out-compete them on volume by flooding the marketplace.

And you create music without ever having heard music before? Or are you also extracting other artist’s work and using it as inspiration for what you do? AI music is the same as AI code. It’s derived from real code, but it’s not just regurgitated wholesale. You still as a person with taste have to guide it and provide inputs. Electronic music made it so you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument. Auto tune made it…

> Electronic music made it so you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument. Auto tune made it so you didn’t have to learn how to sing on key.

Neither of those things are really true, though. They made it possible to make poor music without learning those things, I suppose, but not make good music.

> Banning the new types of art

Nobody is seriously talking about banning AI generated music. What you're seeing is a platform deciding that AI generated music isn't something that platform is into. There are a lot of different platforms out there.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#294

Post by autoexec »

troupo wrote: post #212
beberlei wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you go down the rabbit hole of "mood playlists" and spotify created playlists, then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for and that could probably include AI generated music. If you are explictitly looking for music by specific artists, then you get their music obviously.

> then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for I love this conspiracy theory. Which track doesn't Spotify pay royalties for? Considering that it licenses 100% of its music from external distributors.

I'm not saying they are doing it now, but what's stopping them from generating their own tracks? What's to stop them from creating some bullshit company to generate AI slop and then licensing music from themselves at fractions of what they'd pay a real artist just to keep up the illusion so that real artists don't leave their platform?

If a corporation can do something that will make them more money than they'd make not doing it you should expect them to do the profitable thing. Corporations don't care about ethics or even the law. Maximizing shareholder value is their purpose. They exist only to take from the many and give to the few. It's not a conspiracy theory to assume that they'll be doing exactly what they are designed to do.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#295

Post by butlike »

yowlingcat wrote: post #228
drittich wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also a musician and I don't think it's that amusing. IMO this isn't an "AI can't be art" discussion. It's about the fact that AI can be used to extract value from other artists' work without consent, and then out-compete them on volume by flooding the marketplace.

Wasn't it Picasso that said "good artist borrow, great artists steal?" I've never heard an artist confident in their own ability complain about this because they're not threatened by other competent human artists knocking them off never mind an AI that's even worse at it. AI not going to out-compete anyone on volume by flooding the marketplace because switching costs are effectively zero. Clever artists can probably…

I'm starting to think more and more in my older age that being 'great' isn't a good thing. I might actually prefer being good. We'll see how that thought plays out though; give me a couple more years

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#296

Post by rambojohnson »

yellowapple wrote: post #201
BrokrnAlgorithm wrote: post #79

I'm a musician, but am also pretty amused by this anti ai wave. There was recently a post referencing aphex twin and old school idm and electronic music stuff and i can't help bein reminded how every new tech kit got always demonized until some group of artists came along and made it there own. Even if its just creative prompting, or perhaps custom trained models, someday someone will come along and make a genuine ar…

Along the same lines, the anti-AI attitude among musicians today reminds me quite a bit of the anti-synthesizer attitude of the 60's and 70's, down to the same exact talking points: fears of “real” musicians being replaced by nerds pushing buttons on machines that can imitate those musicians. I think the fears were understandable then, and are understandable now. I also think that, just as the fears around synthesize…

> generative AI catch on not by just imitating other instruments,

but generative AI didn’t catch on by "imitating instruments." It caught on by imitating artists, which streaming platforms and record labels then repackage and outsell you with. false analogy.

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#297

Post by rpdillon »

troupo wrote: post #212
beberlei wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you go down the rabbit hole of "mood playlists" and spotify created playlists, then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for and that could probably include AI generated music. If you are explictitly looking for music by specific artists, then you get their music obviously.

> then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for I love this conspiracy theory. Which track doesn't Spotify pay royalties for? Considering that it licenses 100% of its music from external distributors.

> The program, according to Pelly’s reporting in Harper’s Magazine, is designed to embed low-cost, royalty-free tracks into Spotify’s most popular mood- and activity-based playlists. Produced by a network of “ghost artists” operating under pseudonyms, the tracks are commissioned with the intent to reduce the company’s royalty payouts to artists, per Pelly.

https://edm.com/news/spotify-using-ghost-artists-minimize-ro...

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#298

Post by nemomarx »

eleventen wrote: post #119
olivierestsage wrote: post #16

Funny to see this right now. Spotify's promotion of AI music bothered me so much that it has actually pushed me to Bandcamp and the practice of buying music again. It's really fun to build a collection knowing you're supporting the artists, download FLAC files, organize your little "collection" page ... Feels like a renaissance in my relationship with music, the most fun I've had since what.cd. Anyway, love this stan…

Same for me! Switched to Bandcamp + Navidrome and have decided that one of my goals for the year is to find at least 2 albums per month I want to buy. I will shamelessly promote the bandcampsync [1] CLI tool for automating downloads of your bandcamp library and bandcamp-sync-flask [2] wrapper that I built so I could invoke it from the web on my phone after I buy an album. [1] https://github.com/meeb/bandcampsync [2]…

What's the navidrome pitch?

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#299

Post by wilg »

gspr wrote: post #237
lukevp wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you create music without ever having heard music before? Or are you also extracting other artist’s work and using it as inspiration for what you do? AI music is the same as AI code. It’s derived from real code, but it’s not just regurgitated wholesale. You still as a person with taste have to guide it and provide inputs. Electronic music made it so you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument. Auto tune made it…

> And you create music without ever having heard music before? Or are you also extracting other artist’s work and using it as inspiration for what you do? But the parent poster is, presumably, human! Humans have the right to take inspiration like that from other humans (or machines)! Why do we seem so keen on granting machines the right to take from us? Are we not supposed to be their masters?

Couldn't you just as well say it's a human taking inspiration from other humans through a machine?

Re: AI generated music barred from Bandcamp

#300

Post by parpfish »

troupo wrote: post #212
beberlei wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe if you go down the rabbit hole of "mood playlists" and spotify created playlists, then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for and that could probably include AI generated music. If you are explictitly looking for music by specific artists, then you get their music obviously.

> then you'll get a lot of tracks that they don't need to pay royalties for I love this conspiracy theory. Which track doesn't Spotify pay royalties for? Considering that it licenses 100% of its music from external distributors.

Internally, they refer to it as “perfect fit content” (pfc).

It used to just be stuff like white noise and rain sounds, but it has expanded to essentially be a modern Muzak replacement.

For situations when people don really want “music” and just need “contextually appropriate aesthetically pleasing sound”

Post reply on HN