Artificial intelligence can now compose entire songs in seconds—but who owns the output when the input came from decades of human creativity? In this Music Evolves panel, artists, lawyers, and global thinkers unpack how AI is transforming rights, authorship, and the emotional core of music itself.
As artificial intelligence begins generating music from vast datasets of human art, a fundamental question emerges: who truly owns the sound of AI? This episode of Music Evolves brings together a law student and former musician Chandler Lawn, music industry executive and professor Drew Thurlow, Michael Sheldrick, Co-Founder of Global Citizen, and intellectual property attorney Puya Partow-Navid, alongside hosts Sean Martin and Marco Ciappelli, to examine how AI is reshaping authorship, licensing, and the meaning of originality.
The panel explores how AI democratizes creation while exposing deep ethical and economic gaps. Lawn raises the issue of whether artists whose works trained AI models deserve compensation, asking if innovation can be ethical when built on uncompensated labor. Thurlow highlights how, despite fears of automation, generative AI music accounts for less than 1% of streaming royalties—suggesting opportunity, not replacement.
Sheldrick connects the conversation to a broader global context, describing how music’s economic potential could drive sustainable development if nations modernize copyright frameworks. He views this shift as a rare chance to position creative industries as engines for jobs and growth.
Partow-Navid grounds the discussion in legal precedent, pointing to landmark cases—from Two Live Crew to George R. R. Martin—as markers of how courts may interpret fair use, causality, and global jurisdiction in AI-driven creation.
Together, the guests agree that the debate extends beyond legality. It’s about the emotional authenticity that makes music human. As Chandler notes, “We connect through imperfection.” Marco adds that live performance may ultimately anchor value in a world saturated by digital replication.
This conversation captures the tension—and promise—of a future where music, technology, and law must learn to play in harmony.
Chandler Lawn, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at The University of Texas School of Law | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandlerlawn/
Drew Thurlow, Adjunct Professor at Berklee College of Music | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewthurlow/
Michael Sheldrick, Co-Founder and Chief Policy, Impact and Government Affairs Officer at Global Citizen | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-sheldrick-30364051/
Puya Partow-Navid, Partner at Seyfarth Shaw LLP | On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/puyapartow/
Marco Ciappelli, Co-Founder, ITSPmagazine and Studio C60 | Website: https://www.marcociappelli.com
Sean Martin, Co-Founder at ITSPmagazine, Studio C60, and Host of Redefining CyberSecurity Podcast & Music Evolves Podcast | Website: https://www.seanmartin.com/
Legal Publication: You Can’t Alway Get What You Want: A Survey of AI-related Copyright Considerations for the Music Industry published in Vol. 32, No. 3 of the Texas State Bar Entertainment and Sports Law Journal.
BOOK: Machine Music: How AI Is Transforming Music’s Next Act by Drew Thurlow: https://www.routledge.com/Machine-Music-How-AI-is-Transforming-Musics-Next-Act/Thurlow/p/book/9781032425242
BOOK: From Ideas to Impact: A Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World by Michael Sheldrick: https://www.fromideastoimpact.com/
AI and Copyright Blogs:
https://www.gadgetsgigabytesandgoodwill.com/category/ai/
https://www.gadgetsgigabytesandgoodwill.com/2025/11/dr-thaler-is-right-in-part/
https://www.gadgetsgigabytesandgoodwill.com/2025/07/californias-ai-law-has-set-rules-for-generative-ai-are-you-ready/
https://www.gadgetsgigabytesandgoodwill.com/2025/06/copyright-office-firings-spark-constitutional-concerns-amid-ai-policy-tensions/
Newsletter (Article, Video, Podcast): The Human Touch in a Synthetic Age: Why AI-Created Music Raises More Than Just Eyebrows: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/human-touch-synthetic-age-why-ai-created-music-raises-martin-cissp-s9m7e/
Article — Universal and Sony Music partner with new platform to detect AI music copyright theft using ‘groundbreaking neural fingerprinting’ technology: https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/universal-and-sony-music-partner-with-new-platform-to-detect-ai-music-copyright-theft-using-groundbreaking-neural-fingerprinting-technology/
Article: When Virtual Reality Is A Commodity, Will True Reality Come At A Premium: https://sean-martin.medium.com/when-virtual-reality-is-a-commodity-will-true-reality-come-at-a-premium-4a97bccb4d72
Global Citizen: https://www.globalcitizen.org/
Gallo Music (Gallo Records, South Africa): https://www.gallo.co.za/
Global Citizen Festival: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/festival/
Andy Warhol Foundation v. Goldsmith (Shepard Fairey / “Hope” poster context): https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/598/21-869/case.pdf
George R. R. Martin / Authors Guild v. OpenAI (current AI training lawsuit): https://authorsguild.org/news/ag-and-authors-file-class-action-suit-against-openai/
Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. (2 Live Crew “Pretty Woman”): https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/510/569/
Vanilla Ice / “Under Pressure” Sampling Case: https://blogs.law.gwu.edu/mcir/case/queen-david-bowie-v-vanilla-ice/
MIDiA Research — AI in Music Reports: https://www.midiaresearch.com/reports/ai-and-the-future-of-music-the-future-is-already-here
Merlin (Global Independent Rights Organization): https://www.merlinnetwork.org/
Instagram Reel re: Spotify Terms: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOrgbUNCYj_/
[00:00:00] Sean Martin: Marco
[00:00:51] Marco Ciappelli: Sean, I disagree.
[00:00:53] Sean Martin: I disagree with you too. As, as we often do. We agree to disagree all the time.
[00:00:59] Marco Ciappelli: That's why we [00:01:00] make interesting conversation. I think
[00:01:02] Sean Martin: hopefully, at least for ourselves, maybe a few other people enjoy them too.
[00:01:05] Marco Ciappelli: Well, we'll, we'll, we'll see if our guests agree with us or not.
[00:01:08] Sean Martin: I know. So this is, uh, this is a, not a first for us, uh, with ITSP magazine, but certainly for, uh.
My show music evolves. Typically, I have one-on-one conversations with, uh, artists and performers and curator and professors and the like. Uh, but today we're doing a panel to look at. AI and music and, uh, who owns the rights to what given that AI seems to be, uh, creating new things based on old things, and, uh, many of those old things are not in the public domain and, and created by somebody who owns the rights to them.
And probably an organization that owns the rights to them. So we're gonna talk about, uh, how all this fits together. And, and, uh, of course it was just you and I, we had a conversation on this, which is
[00:01:54] Marco Ciappelli: we did,
[00:01:55] Sean Martin: that's when we
[00:01:55] Marco Ciappelli: decided to have,
[00:01:56] Sean Martin: I know, an extended, extended conversation. People who know what the, what the heck's going [00:02:00] on, not just us.
So I'm thrilled to have Julia, Chandler, Michael, and Puya on, uh, to bring different perspectives. We'll do a quick round here. Of course, Marco, you'll, uh, you'll, you'll jump in where, uh, where you want. Um. A quick round for who you are, what you're up to in this space of music. And, uh, then we'll, we'll ask the, ask the fun questions.
Chandler, we'll start with you.
[00:02:22] Chandler Lawn: Hi, I am, uh, Chandler Lawn. I'm currently in my last year of law school at the University of Texas. I was a professional, musician, singer-songwriter, touring, recording artist for over 10 years. Um, I also taught music, music education for many years, and now I primarily focus my legal research and publications on legal issues involving copyright and ai, um, targeted towards the music industry.
[00:02:47] Sean Martin: You have, uh, some, some research that you put together and a paper you put together, which will link to as well. So people can read that. Uh, drew a few words from you.
[00:02:55] Drew Thurlow: Sure. Just like Chandler, I started out as a professional touring and recording artist assigned [00:03:00] to Atlantic. Still have a rough trade, uh, publishing deal.
Um, did a and R at two Majors Warners, and then I was a senior vice president of the a and r at Sony. Also ran Pandora's music team in between. I have since started my own company. I have a textbook that's coming out in February called. Machine music, how AI is trans transforming music's next act. I'm also a pro adjunct professor of music strategy, innovation and AI at Berkeley College of Music.
I'll be teaching some other AI classes at some other universities, and I have a lot of clients and consultant work in this space.
[00:03:33] Sean Martin: Fantastic. Great to have you on. And Michael.
[00:03:37] Michael Sheldrick: Hi everyone, my name is Michael Shedrick. I'm one of the co-founders of Global Citizen. We're mostly known in this space for how we use music.
To connect people and give citizens around the world a place to take action to end. Extreme poverty, and probably most well known in New York City for the Global Citizen Festival [00:04:00] have just gotten back from our first ever event in Latin America, which took place in the the gateway to the Amazon, which was incredibly exciting.
In addition to that, I also teach policy entrepreneurship at Columbia University. And have recently published a book called From Ideas to Impact, a Playbook for Influencing and Implementing Change in a Divided World. And I think probably what's most of interest to this conversation is how increasingly I've been looking at not just music as a, as a way to advocate and engage people, but the way music itself.
Can help drive job creation, economic development, and poverty alleviation if we get governments to understand its power and make sure as we race towards AI and this new technology era, we set things up, policy frameworks, intellectual property laws, all in the right [00:05:00] way to really harness the full potential of music, it could be incredibly exciting.
So thrilled to join you today.
[00:05:08] Sean Martin: Yeah. Fantastic. Glad you could Last but not least, a good friend of mine from LA there pya how. I'm
[00:05:14] Puya Partow-Navid: good. Hi, I am Pya, part Navi. I'm a partner at Sci Far Shah. My practice is, I've been practicing for 18 years. My practice is focused on patents, um, mostly, but I also cover the wide rate of IP Um, we've been doing AI patents for around 10 years now.
And then once generator of AI came about, I was kind of the subject matter expert at our firm and we cover ip, various IP issues. I don't have any musical background, but I secretly wish I could be a rock star. That would be my alternate alterna. Don't we?
[00:05:50] Marco Ciappelli: Don't we all,
[00:05:51] Puya Partow-Navid: don't we all
[00:05:51] Marco Ciappelli: to you?
[00:05:52] Sean Martin: I think, I think we all want to.
I think we all want to. And I, and I'll, I'll use that as kind of the, the, the entry point for, [00:06:00] for the conversation to start, which is a lot of us, I don't know if it makes us, makes it easy to perform. Maybe it does, um, but. AI certainly gives a lot of people a chance to create music. Right. Um, mark and I, as part of our last conversation, we each took that.
Conversation wrote a prompt and created, uh, a minute piece, uh, each with the, with our own styles and who knows where the source of that came from. Um, and I didn't want to do it. Marco uh, teased me into do it, but dared me to do it. But I guess the point is we can all create using ai. Which is cool. Um, I don't think it's right.
Marco likes to do it. Um, and then there's the, the, the middle reality of, of, is it legal or not? So I'm gonna put it out there 'cause reusing ideas and, and feelings and emotions and words and [00:07:00] notes and chords. It's been done for decades, right? Music builds on music, builds on music, builds on music. Um, there.
There are rules and rights and regulations and, and, uh, how have things changed now with AI in general? I'm gonna. Leave it to you to kind of kick things into gear where you see things are today looking back.
[00:07:22] Chandler Lawn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there is a lot of talk now about the democratization element, right?
That these technologies bring to music, and I think having worked in music education. Um, I can see the appeal, you know, being able to teach a music class to kids and having them draft their own songs, or maybe creators who are less financially capable of recording in a big studio or hiring a band to track live on their songs, whatever those financial constraints may be.
But like you mentioned, Sean, and I think I tend to kind of lean in your direction and fall into the camp of, is it legal? Is it [00:08:00] okay to, um, not compensate the artists who were responsible for feeding the data that built these models in the first place? While I think the tool and the technology are undeniably, um, pretty revolutionary and provide a lot of new opportunities that do have value in and of themselves, I think we have to dig deeper and look at the root of how they were created in the first place.
And whether, um, not only are those foundations ethical, but are they sustainable?
[00:08:30] Sean Martin: And feel free to jump in anybody, but I'll, I'll turn it to Drew, but if you have something to to share, we just jump on in.
[00:08:37] Drew Thurlow: Yeah. I think we have to clearly get an answer on whether training a model on protected IP is legal or not. 'cause that'll just help define the ethical boundaries once we know the legal boundaries and it'll help stir the market.
I think. It's important though to separate the narrative between what's real. I think the music industry is looking for this narrative that music that is created [00:09:00] with generative AI is replacing artists or somehow a threat to the music industry. And the evidence is actually quite different. We now have two plus years of generative AI streaming and flooding the DSPs.
It is still less than 1% of the royalty pool. Fans don't wanna listen to this. DSPs aren't supporting it. This tech is really cool. Like Chandler and Sean you mentioned. It's got a lot of upside to the creation process and it's creating new markets, but I don't see a lot of evidence and as MID has done some good research here too, that it's actually replacing artists.
So I think one of the. Fights over copyright and fair use or not. One of the tenants, as you know, I'm gonna defer to Chandler, the, the legal scholar here, that it's, it harms the commercial market for the original and there's not a lot of evidence that it's doing that. In fact, there's some evidence that it's actually.
Creating new markets for [00:10:00] rights holders and artists. So I think we can take a step back and whether we like it or not, it's here. And I think we just need to be very clear about what it means to have generative AI in our lives. 'cause it's not necessarily what I think people, people think.
[00:10:15] Michael Sheldrick: I, I think it's, it's interesting because you know, the whole discussion around this, if you look at the positive by forcing this discussion to happen around music and ip, and Sean, you mentioned that in some respects this is not new.
Right? If you go to certain parts of the world, we, we were just with the Prime Minister of Barbados a few weeks ago. You can also speak to ministers of culture across many African nations. They would talk about the fact that many of these countries have no shortage of incredible artists, right? But they all, I either have to get registered in a place like the UK Ireland.
Or, or, [00:11:00] or the US in terms of where they're licensed. And then of course, the royalties go to those countries and those, uh, countries like Barbados or countries in Africa are not able to tax any of those, those revenues and feed it back into their own economies or, you know, many of those musicians. Don't license our music and it gets picked up anyway, um, in different places.
And this is, this has happened for years. And so, you know, this conversation around strong copyright, strong intellectual property and actually enforceability may actually be a good thing. Many of these countries where artists are, because when you look at the size of, of the music economy, it's only growing, you know, the last.
Two or three years. The fastest grown region in the world for downloads from streaming, albeit from a a low base, has been Sub-Saharan Africa right now. Where are most of the, the proceeds of the [00:12:00] revenues for that go in? Probably not staying in country. And so it is a massive opportunity to be sitting around the table with ministers of finance, with attorneys general, and actually saying, Hey, with the right regime, there's so much, um, possibility and potential with the right laws, with the right frameworks.
This could be a major driver of economic growth and revenue. For you as a country. So in that sense, it's, it's forcing a conversation, you know, from Johannesburg and South Africa all the way to Bridgetown, Barbados, which I think is incredibly exciting that people are looking at this in, in a brand new way.
So that, that's perhaps one of the upsides of this whole conversation right now.
[00:12:44] Marco Ciappelli: Yeah. Well, I, I agree. And that's, you know, when, when me and Sean take one side or another, I think sometimes it's forced. I think we share a lot of the same thoughts. And you know, my podcast is about technology and society, so I like to even.
Take the [00:13:00] music conversation to art in general, right? Like writing, uh, it's been a big part of the conversation. Um, newspaper wants to copyright the, the, the articles and, and writers of course, same thing. Um, we may say the same thing about photography and anything else, but the truth is, as we have been mentioning that we've always been inspired by what we already hear.
Like even when you teach to school, a school like Kids to play, Chandler may agree you're still playing other people music and it kind of gets ingrained in your brain. And sometimes I, you know, I'm not a professional musician, but I play around with my piano and I'm like, Hey, wait a minute, I just changed one note here.
And I have another song. It's just one note out of five and, and it's another one. And I'm creating music that it's in my brain because I heard it so many times. The compensation that's. That's the key. So I love how Drew and Michael, and you know, Chandler too, we're kind of leaning towards the fact [00:14:00] that having this conversation and having ai, it may be maybe a good thing as long as we figure it out, how nobody should be, you know, like nobody should be stealing other people like, uh.
There are cases, and I'm gonna mention one, like I've seen os three times with my wife 'cause she's crazy about them. And I kind of look at the verve, listen to the verb and discover how the bittersweet symphony been pretty much giving money to the Rolling Stones for, for the past, you know, how many years.
And finally, a few years ago, they gave the right to him. So in a way. There is a, there could be an entire conversation and debate there as well, so maybe everybody could make money in a, in a fair way. But I love that we're actually talking about this, so that's why we, we take a position or another. I don't think it's because we, we are on one, one side or the other.
We are just passionate about the art [00:15:00]
[00:15:00] Drew Thurlow: we are and, and I think quickly, I'm just really encouraged by artists, community and rights holders who are. Managing this pretty well and talking and thinking about this. The relationship that the music in industry has had with technology over the last two generations has been terrible.
Like terrible. Mm-hmm. I mean, could you, could you, could they have, could they have gotten file sharing any more wrong? Like, and, and even streaming, which they righted, you know, streaming launched in Europe in 2005. It didn't come to America until 2010. I mean, they just, he completely fumbled that, but,
[00:15:33] Marco Ciappelli: mm-hmm.
[00:15:34] Drew Thurlow: As much as I talked to the. Big AI companies, and as much as I talk to the major labels and the artist communities and trade groups, I think everyone understands this is pretty dramatic. And I think everyone is, even though they might have some opposing viewpoints and different points that they want to get across, and then they have, they have some, not all always aligned interests and incentives.
Everyone's managing this stuff and thinking about this stuff pretty [00:16:00] seriously, which is, uh, different from the past. So I'm encouraged.
[00:16:04] Sean Martin: And Pia, I'd like, I'd like to get your thoughts on this. 'cause I, the one thing that sticks out for me with, with AI is just the sheer scale with which things can happen.
Yeah. And that means creative, but also kind of to touch on a few points we made it, it's also identifying it, being able to track back perhaps where things are kind of Michael's point. So how, how are organizations and individuals you work with kind of. Getting their hands wrapped around it so they know enough about what's happening to actually put some lines in the sand that this is acceptable.
This is not
[00:16:37] Puya Partow-Navid: Well there's a good case that recently the George RR Martin case, 'cause he brought a suit and like two years ago if you asked us it was, it was. Kind of the wild west. You didn't know where it was going, and it seemed like the courts were leaning towards, um, the ai, the models who, who owned the models, but George RR Martin, the writer of Game of Thrones, brought [00:17:00] a suit and the court allowed it to proceed because there was a direct tie between his material and what the general AI output it.
So they could say you could. Was a causal link. I think one of the issues is, and this goes back to copyright cases, is for example, two live crew sampled pretty woman, and that was transformative enough that, and I have a fire alarm going, so I don't know what's gonna happen. But that was transformative enough that that wasn't a copyright violation.
But for example, vanilla ice sampling, um, under pressure, that was not transformative enough. So I think one of the issues here is can you have a link between the material that it was trained on and what the output is? And I don't know what's gonna happen there in the courts. That might be that that seems to be a fundamental issue, but then.
That's only the US when we get globally. Like if is the court, if someone's training material [00:18:00] songs in China, are they gonna be held accountable under the same standards that the us, the companies are? And we gotta imagine that's not, we don't have to imagine. It's, the reality is as a global system. So we have to figure out globally, because what happens in the US isn't gonna be enforced in China, isn't gonna be enforced in Europe.
So. That's the bigger issue, I think is, uh, having a global system in place where artists are respected and their rights are enforced.
[00:18:29] Drew Thurlow: Can I, I wanna ask you a question and you Chandler too, like what have we learned from other ki other court cases and other, other verticals and other sectors? Like there was a couple of Google Books cases and some, what we've learned from the philanthropic and the OpenAI New York Times cases.
Like is that an. Kind of a, a, a guide point towards where we're headed with music.
[00:18:50] Chandler Lawn: I mean, I, I think in some ways yes. Right? Like what we're looking at primarily is the separation of outputs and inputs. So the [00:19:00] case law that we've seen so far has only focused on the training data that's. Being input. Um, what Pooya is talking about is a substantial similarity test, which for music and other art oftentimes as well, but music specifically is only gonna be applied at the output stage.
And so when we're running that test, it's like a case by case basis, right? Um, and so the precedent that we're seeing is like running the fair use test on the training data for input. Um, and there are definitely. Parallels there that can be drawn to the music industry. I think we haven't seen any cases yet on the output side of things, which is what would bring in that more case by case, substantial similarity analysis, which has already kind of been thrown out of whack by the Marvin Gaye case.
Um, that has already pivoted a lot of our perspective on how we view substantial similarity, at least in the music context. So there's still a lot of questions up in the air. I mean, I think we have precedent with Google Books. We have, you know, Barth versus Anthropic. The two cases we have up. From Northern District of California this past summer that give us [00:20:00] some information of how courts are looking at the fair use analysis.
But again, this is for published written materials. We haven't had this input or output side music composition side come up in the courts, and it leaves a lot of opportunity to discuss, you know, where we think that can go and how we think that precedent can then be extrapolated out.
[00:20:21] Marco Ciappelli: Right. I wanna, Sean, can I, I wanna pass to Michael 'cause I'm really, really interested into the situation that he sees traveling around the world.
And, and Michael, you just mentioned a couple of case study and, and, and how, how do you see the ai, the use of music or any other art if you wanna touch on that to actually help artists to, to create and be compensated for and when you're not the big. You know, the big band that, that can sue everybody that can do something wrong about it.
[00:20:55] Michael Sheldrick: Well, well look, uh, in, in some respects we have to remember, you [00:21:00] know, it's funny, I was, when I was recently in South Africa, I was with Gallo, um, records, which is I think Africa's oldest record label, right? Or, or Africa's oldest homegrown record label. And from their perspective, you know, technology re large, forget AI for one moment.
In some respects, it's a lead in. To, um, you know, a resurgence. You know, they've got songs which have never properly been played, which has never properly been distributed. They're now looking at digitalizing all of that, getting it out there, you know, through the, through the use of social media and all of these platforms.
It allows you to reach new markets, new niches. You're seeing collaborations between big international artists and hyper-local artists that kind of localization, uh, that. Allows that can now be globalized and build markets around the world. So to some extent, it's incredibly exciting. Now, of [00:22:00] course, we have to figure out where the boundaries lie on some of these issues with respect to fair use.
Originality and some of these questions in the courts, there's a number of different jurisdictions who are handling that in in different ways. My understanding is countries like Japan and Singapore have perhaps taken more liberal uses, liberal. Um, stances in terms of how much they allow exemptions to copyright, um, in, in terms of AI use.
Whereas in, in South Africa, you know, an amendment to their copyright law is, is literally going through the courts now. It was, it was held up to the constitutional court for review. Last year, and I believe that's where it's still languished in waiting to be resolved. But you know, this, this, if you look at this, this is, this is the, the, the, the, the cornerstone of this issue.
Right. In terms of where, where ultimately. The courts and, and the [00:23:00] parliament and lawmakers will, will say, this is, this is where the, the, the test will ultimately come to when, when dealing with issues of, of fair use and what constitutes fair use. But I ultimately think if you go back to something Drew said earlier and.
If you take the point that ultimately music that relies a lot on AI to be generated is currently, you know, I think the stat you said Drew was 1%. Maybe in terms of overall downloads, if you take that and say, okay, that's where the market's going to be, and you also take the view that AI is gonna disrupt other industries, right?
People say that when you look at, I mean my, my. Focus is how do we eradicate poverty and the traditional sectors mining in. Manufacturing agriculture that communities have reli originally, uh uh, [00:24:00] traditionally, historically relied on to lift communities out of poverty. If all of those industries are gonna be disrupted and they're not gonna create jobs.
They're not gonna create incomes and livelihoods in the same way that they have historically. Where are the jobs? Where are the incomes gonna be generated from? And this is where I think music and the live events industry, creative economy sector at large could actually become one of those industries that we, we rely on over the coming decade.
I mean, the president of the World Bank, RJ Banger. Recently said that over the next 10 years we're gonna have 1.2. Billion people enter the job market mostly in developing economies. He said, currently we have about, based on job creation trajectories, currently we have about 400 million jobs to meet that 1.2 billion needs.
So where's the other 800 million jobs gonna come from? [00:25:00] The World Bank together with tourism, hospitality, the creative economy. I mean, he threw out this stat, he said, for every dollar invested in the creative economy in tourism, you create eight more jobs in manufacturing. And you look at stats reports from the World Economic Forum, they say people are traveling more, not just to see things, traditional tourism, but they want to experience, they love going to events.
They love music. And so you could say, actually, you know, this could be the age of of music. Live events industry where it's actually taken seriously for once as, as a serious driver of economic development and economies have to get behind it. Governments have to get back and say, Hey, this is a serious part of our trajectory.
And I think the UK has flagged this as a key part of their. Um, strategy over the coming decades. So in that respect from music, it, it could actually end up getting the attention from policy makers, lawmakers. But I [00:26:00] know many in the industry have often demoed and said, okay, when we go and meet with ministers or cabinets, they just refer to us as the music guys.
Um, but without actually treating us seriously as, um, you know, sport or, um. Or, or, or, or infrastructure or mining or some of these other big drivers as well. So in that sense, it, it could be incredibly exciting. That's, that's the upside, that's part of the reason why at Global Citizen, we're trying to build Africa's first international touring circuit.
Um, because I, I think it could be incredibly excited.
[00:26:34] Marco Ciappelli: And you know what, another thing is. The appreciation for what is made by humans, right? It it just give you that, you know, handcrafted appreciate, like looking at what has been made by us. 'cause nobody wanna go to see a concert live where. AI is playing.
I mean, I wouldn't, you know what I mean? Uh, so
[00:26:56] Drew Thurlow: yeah, even the, even the Abba avatars, the Abba Voyage [00:27:00] show in London is like, which is hilarious that they call them avatars. Even they have a 10 piece acoustic live band with the avatars. So, you're
[00:27:08] Marco Ciappelli: right, it is a novelty, but I I, I don't think it's gonna last really.
I mean, you can go at the sphere in Las Vegas and look at something like that, but it's, I, I don't think it will stand it. You know, the, the, the, the, and it wouldn't stand the, the judgment of time, honestly. Um, was, and I would like to know the kids, like how do the kids learning music now and maybe channel it.
I, what, what, what do you see? Um, when, when the kids knows they can create music with AI pretty easily. Does you choose to play with AI or does it still say, well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna play guitar, or I'm gonna play an instrument?
[00:27:43] Chandler Lawn: I mean, I, I think that's what access to these tools in all sectors is sort of reflecting now, right?
Like these general studies that are beginning to come out about cognitive. Decline, like lack of reasoning. Like when you have the option to offload just as humans, naturally we're gonna take these your way out, [00:28:00] right? It's a lot harder to get a kid to practice piano and learn sheet music and strum their guitar and get calluses on their fingers.
You know, all those processes, um, that are physical, mental, and emotional let go into making music. And I think what Michael has really highlighted is this intangible value of music, right? I think especially in the legal field. Um, and we talk about damages when we talk about. Valuation. We're talking about financial value, market value in a fair use context, but music is unique in these intangibles, right?
The power it has to connect people and bring people together. These things that Michael's looking to capitalize on. These things that we all know and have. Personally experience to some extent. That's why we're here today talking about music, and I think what we really have to look at is how are we compensating musicians, but not just in a financial context.
I know that when I was 12 years old writing songs in my bedroom and posting them online, I wasn't looking to. Become a millionaire. It was not financial incentive that was driving me to do that. It was a greater drive to [00:29:00] connect and share and be heard and felt and seen. And I think we have to bring that conversation more into the legal space, uh, because if we're looking at it and evaluating things like market based on a purely financial standpoint, we're missing out on a lot of the point.
[00:29:15] Drew Thurlow: Totally. And, and I think we wanna live in a society that incentivizes people to be artists. Not only just because it's good for the economy, but because it's good for culture and society and it's good for mental health. And I'm like fascinated Michael, by your perspective on music and the creator economy can actually matter from a global GDP standpoint.
I've like never heard that perspective before. I think it's spot on and I think it's something that like we should be working towards because. What, I don't know if it's terrifying or awesome, that music could be the savior of the world economy. Typically, relying on the music industry to do anything productive or right is not gone well, [00:30:00] but.
I think it's like, you're right. I mean the, all the, the, the, the stability around the industry and the stability around the creative fields, especially in the western world. Europe has a little bit more institutional support with governments and even Canada does. But, but I think developing those skillset and, and, and to Chandler's point, like incentivizing people to pursue this for beyond just a job is something that we should absolutely work towards infrastructure to support.
[00:30:28] Michael Sheldrick: My, um, my good friend, uh, Shang Shapiro, he's a, he's a music economist. Uh, you should check out some of his work. He's trying to measure just this, and what he points out to me is. You know, currently I think the value of music to the world's GDP, it's something like 4%, right? Which sounds low, but he points out that in the last few years that it represents a Dublin from 2%, right?
So yes, it's a small base, but it's growing and partly [00:31:00] because we're getting better at how we track it. And also put in a value on some of those intangibles. You, you mentioned Chandler, like he, he pointed out that if you took just the value of record labels, right. Going back all time, the history of every record out there, the value of that on paper, at least it's, it's equivalent to, and he valued it as very low, relatively speaking.
He said it's equivalent to the value. Of India's wedding industry, the wedding events industry. And he said, that can't be true. Right? And this is because, you know, a lot of these musicians around the world, either it's not licensed, it's not tracked, or, or, um, it's, it's not represented. So partly it's, it's how do we document this and show to government?
Actually, this could be a big chunk. But also it's, it's one of those areas where, and who knows, maybe we will all be watching AI [00:32:00] generated concerts. Maybe we will, um, show for that music. But I think, you know, the, the human condition we have a good sense of seeing for all of that, right? When we, when we, when we get all this content, we're still good at cipher and through and recognizing a good story or song when we can.
And so if you count on that judgment. For genuine, authentic creativity. And if we put in the policies, the investments to allow it to thrive, it, it could be, it could be enter a powerful new era. And, you know, that's why, I mean, he's, he's working on a book at the moment and he's titled it How Music Can Save the World, which, which might be some the risk of hyperbole, but in some respects it may not be far from the mark.
[00:32:49] Drew Thurlow: I mean, mu music has a huge mind share and culture and it's the most popular thing in the world. But as a business it is really small and it's gotten bigger with the maturation of [00:33:00] streaming. But the way that the traditional GDP or financial services industry met, they where the way that they measure markets judging by that calculus, it is like really small.
It, it traditionally and historically hasn't been able to support a lot of jobs, and it hasn't, it's been incredibly disruptive and so it's probably more bigger than we think, but I would be surprised if it was more than 4% of real GDP. That actually sounds quite high to me,
[00:33:32] Sean Martin: and it makes me wonder 'cause it, I've heard the term industry here, music industry, um, a few times and I'm, I'm wondering.
Does that need to be redefined? Do we need to, is is it a small number of entities that control what this is? And, and does the, does the power need to shift, I guess to, to the back to the artists a bit more? Back to the, the, the people who help the [00:34:00] artists perform to large groups of people and the communities that, that welcome them and to, to Michael's point, make.
Make live performances real? Um, I don't know. I do, do we need to change what the music industry quote unquote, is? Probably,
[00:34:16] Marco Ciappelli: well, I think it's changing. I think it's changing. I mean, with social media, the, the dynamic of the record label controlling the success or not success of an artist that has been changing.
You know, you, they, you can, you can see a lot of crop, sorry for the French online, but you can see a lot of opportunities of people that would maybe, would've never done it unless they were quote unquote discovered by the producer and still making it big, and now actually being in the position to control their own music and, and their own income.
So. I don't know how AI is gonna help or not help this, but, but I think that it is been changed since the advent of social media list,
[00:34:59] Sean Martin: because the, the reason [00:35:00] I asked that question is the, the labels maybe, maybe not so much the labels, but maybe the, uh, the, like, uh, was it who, who owns the right, who, who manages the, the rights to the music, right.
The licensors. I
[00:35:15] Drew Thurlow: mean, when you play there, there's a lot of things that are music centric that are not counted in the music industry. So if I am, if I'm Oldsmobile, I don't know why I just pulled, picked Oldsmobile, but I'm a car company and I, and I do like a advertising campaign around a Ariana Grande song, you know, that is not considered.
What, what's paid to her master in publishing for the sync is, but the media value captured in that is not considered the music industry. And there's a lot of brands and agencies out there doing that. And even some of these like creator economies that raise a lot of capital, a lot of 'em are based around K-Pop.
That's not necessarily considered the music industry, but it's all kind of, it flows in. So we definitely need new [00:36:00] definitions. I mean, we need new definitions around what's major, what's indie. Um, a lot of what you think is indie is actually owned by a major label. So Taylor Swift is technically an independent artist.
She gets counted in the independent artist stats in the music industry. I don't think anyone would think or assume that Taylor Swift is an independent artist in the strictest sense. So we do need a lot of new definitions and we need a, a new way to categorize and, and codify what it is, what quote unquote music is.
[00:36:29] Chandler Lawn: I think what's interesting on the rights holder side of that though is if you're looking at, let's say like the big three major labels in the US that are managing the majority of music rights, if those are the people controlling the majority of artists, right, that are not quote unquote, actually and dependent, then those are the people who are in the rooms having conversations with.
AI licensing companies, right? So there's a representation issue as well as I think licensing is sort of looked at as this panacea for a plethora of music industry [00:37:00] issues faced by ai. And when you think about who is owning and controlling these rights, going back and forth, you're not accounting for all musicians, right?
Mm-hmm. Like these, this huge like UIO settlement that UMG just hap happened to have and their licensing deal that pushed through. That's not all music being licensed, right? That's only. Rights that are controlled by UMG. And so I think what we have to look at. Is who's controlling these rights and what independent artists who are actually independent and not working with labels who do have more opportunities than ever before, what they can do to be a part of this conversation.
Otherwise, you know, there is this sort of wiping out. Of rights in the sense that I can infinitely generate maybe Taylor Swift songs because I'm pulling them from um, G'S catalog. But I can't infinitely generate a number of Drew songs because his Atlantic deal hasn't pulled through. You know, there's a such an infinite number, and I think it's a representation and consent issue on the licensing front as well.
[00:37:59] Drew Thurlow: Hmm. [00:38:00] Yeah. The rich getting richer and ignoring the long tail. Yeah. This is, um, this, this, this episode will come out after, but I've, ironically, I'm spending the day at Suno tomorrow. I'm working on some stuff with them and I keep trying to get them to tell me what's going on, when are the deals coming, and obviously they won't tell me a thing, but.
We all expect these deals to happen and, and I think the music industry's answer to that question, Chandler, is that that's why we have Merlin Merlin's job is to advocate for and license the independent music community. And if you're an independent label or you're an independent artist, then opt into what we do and you'll be part of that whole pool.
But when the history of recorded music now includes 250 million songs, when 10 years ago it was 18 million songs. I mean, it's just like, how do you. Manage and compensate all those people fairly, it's just, it's, we're drowning in a sea of, of music and, and that's not an ai, that's not 'cause of ai. That's just 'cause of the democratization of digital recording and [00:39:00] distribution over the last 10 years.
I
[00:39:01] Chandler Lawn: mean, I wonder if there's something to be said now for the new era of independent artists, because if you're missing out on these larger scale licensing deals, I wonder if in a sense there's incentive to not be a part of it, because then you can stay human generated. Right? Like if I not signed to a major label, don't want people just.
Make a Chandler song into Suno, right? Then I can maybe retain some of my rights ownership and it could usher in a new Arab independent artists who are not participating in these generative models and putting, uh, record like artists who are under record deals under a different level of scrutiny, because now all of a sudden, oh, I'm signed.
But this also means that whether or not I consented to it on the front end, contractually, I am now infinitely general. Right. And so that is an interesting dichotomy shift that we're gonna see as well, I think with smaller independent artists, um, is whether or not they participate in the AI scheme as it were, and how that distinguishes, you know, the content that's coming out and that we're consuming.[00:40:00]
[00:40:02] Sean Martin: So we have a few minutes left here, about 10 minutes. I wanna bring you back in. So I guess the big question I had was, does the industry need to change? Can we look back at other. Significant changes in other areas of technology. 'cause you spend a lot of time in, in, in tech, IP and copyright stuff. Um, can we look back at other areas where we might be able to see what, what the future might hold for AI specifically with, with music?
[00:40:33] Puya Partow-Navid: That's a good question. Um, I think in just looking back in terms of like sampling. Might be a good place to look for what the future holds for AI and music. Um, but there hasn't sampling and just deriv derivative works like she, uh, she Perry Fairy case where he took the Andre the Giant and made it [00:41:00] into those posters and like the transformative use of using other material to create new material.
That, that is I think the foundation for the rights, like what's gonna happen with these AI cases. Um, but I don't know any, any other legal area where this were just, it, it's all, it's all based on copyrights. I mean, trademarks aren't involved, patents aren't involved. It's just, if you look at previous trademark cases, I mean copyright cases of when something, one artist took what was already created and created something else with it, how much transformation was there?
Um, that's where we're gonna get into. But there, the underlying question is. What's gonna, and I think, sorry for, for the fire alarm, I missed what you guys were talking about. From what I do understand is maybe you guys were talking about like bundling artist rights. Um, and I think that is like, that comes into a.
Um, training data for like co for [00:42:00] large language models and movies and everything else. And so it's gonna be, it's not just gonna be limited to music, it's gonna be every, all the multimedia that's gonna be involved, it's gonna have to, there's gonna be have, there's gonna be some bundling of rights somewhere 'cause people are tired of their work being used to train their large language models.
But on the other, before I get, before that, I think we also need to look at where the current administration is. So like the current administration tried to get rid of the director of the copyright office 'cause she was more towards artists, right. Than she was towards the companies. Um, and I think the current administration is leaning more towards the big companies than artists.
So I think that that comes into play too. We can't discount that.
[00:42:46] Sean Martin: Yeah. And, and Drew, I want, I wanted to ask you this question. Um, is it, is it possible to create something unique? I mean, if, if you're generating something with ai, it's based on something from [00:43:00] somewhere, probably multiple things to P'S point, right?
Multiple artists, multiple sounds. Can we, if AI's involved, can we ever create something new and unique?
[00:43:12] Drew Thurlow: Absolutely. I mean, Marco, you said earlier about how music is the conation of, I learned from this piece and that piece. I mean, that's why it's called a neural network, right? I mean, they literally were built based off how a brain works.
These AI models are really impressive. They're really good. And by the way, AI models aren't the only ones making shitty music. I mean most of the music as someone who ran a and r teams, as long as I did, you know, how many bad demos I sat through and bad shows?
[00:43:38] Marco Ciappelli: Oh
[00:43:38] Drew Thurlow: my God. Like, like humans make and, and also, I don't wanna pick on, I, I hate to say this 'cause I respect the career she's had, but have you spent time in a Katy Perry recording session?
I mean, you, this people come in and they, the producers come in and they, they focus group is synth patch and then they'll bring her in and sing the top line and they'll. They'll for code it and Auto-Tune it to death, and then [00:44:00] they'll focus group it some more. By the time the, the song is like printed for mixing and mastering, it's like, is that, that's Bob Dylan in a room with a guitar.
It is not so I think like we need to think about this as a spectrum rather than a binary AI or not. AI is used a lot in the creative process now. It has been used in the creative process. Most of what you hear has been mastered with ai. Now AI is like creating plugins and simples and senses and, and the line between what's AI generated, what's AI assisted is really blurry.
So these models are really good and I've, I've watched these artists who, you know, are very hesitant to work with AI and they hate it. And the idea of a generative AI model is something that's threatening to them. And then you watch 'em play around with these models, especially the new Suno studio, and you see what it can do for them, and you can see the ideas it creates.
And every, almost every artist I've, I've talked to who's gone through this process has like, is like converted. And that doesn't mean we need to ignore the [00:45:00] copyright issues. It doesn't mean we, we, we don't need to like work out some licensing frameworks. But as Pya said before, like sampling is a good analogy here.
I mean, the industry was like, we can't possibly figure this out. And sure enough we did. We came up with a licensing framework. We came up with a way to clear it, and we came up with a way to track it. And I think the same is gonna have to be true with ai. We'll, whatever the law says, we'll come up with a way to fingerprint track and then figure out, deal with the outputs.
But these AA models are really good. They're so good, and they can create compelling music and. If a human is attached to it, human in the loop, then I think it's gonna create compelling art that people are gonna want
[00:45:44] Puya Partow-Navid: and they're gonna get better. Like I've seen what these engineers are working on and I'm like, we're writing the patents right now.
Like the stuff that they're coming out with is like mind blowing. Like especially with like movies. So I know like the movie stuff is gonna be groundbreaking in the next few months, the years the move, the [00:46:00] music is gonna get better, everything's just gonna get better. We're just like at the crest of the wave.
[00:46:05] Chandler Lawn: And that brings back Michael's point though, right? About how live then is gonna have to become the backbone inevitably, because I know we've all felt it, but this exhaustion of like digital content inundation, I think it was already hard enough to keep up with digital updates from just human made content.
And now we have LOP feeds kind of integrating into every pla. Form what have you, including music streaming services. And so I think this idea that things can get better, maybe in a technical sense, yes, but we're so limited in terms of human attention span and what we really connect with and are compelled by.
And I wouldn't say that we're most compelled by the most technically precise. Things. There's oftentimes that intangible is what pulls us to music, right? It's not always that this is always a fight I would get in, in production studios, if it's not the perfectly mastered song that has the most success, right?
It's the perfectly emotional song, the perfectly, it has to hit someone in the right time and right [00:47:00] place. And there's again, those intangibles that come up with that. And so I think you have to think about the exhaustion factor, especially when we're talking about digitizing content that we're consuming and how live, hopefully we'll offset that a little bit, but how as we.
Advance more and more. It's like, is anyone gonna be listening after a certain point? Are we gonna wear out consumers, um, who are just over and undated with slop in the process of getting there?
[00:47:24] Drew Thurlow: And Chandler, I trust the fans and music fans implicitly. 'cause like, if it's not compelling and it's not emotional, it doesn't have that, that artistic bend to it.
Like, I fans aren't gonna listen. They're gonna click out of it. And that's, no one's incentivized to to have that.
[00:47:41] Michael Sheldrick: I would, I mean, I would also, I I was just gonna say, picking up on something Dan was saying, and of course there's the economics of it, you know, the fact, you know, streaming, you know, most artists, how much do you get, um, for each song when someone downloads it?
So there's the incentives why touring is [00:48:00] picking up as, uh, as, as, uh, as de economics incentivizer. But also I think what you are getting at is in this great book I've been. Reading right now called The Joy of Connection, and it's about this so-called loneliness, um, epidemic that's plague in society. And whether or not you believe that or not, you know, people are crying out for connection right now, right?
And so. You know how people, you know, there was a question, Sean, you raised earlier about what is the music industry, but it is all of that other stuff that, that layers onto it. It's look at Huntsville, Alabama, which is an incredible example of how in a number of years they transformed themselves into a music city and by investing in these spaces, investing in these venues.
Provided a way for music to come in, provided all the ancillary jobs, businesses that benefited from that, but also revitalized the spirit of the [00:49:00] community as well and gave people what many are yearning. And we see this businesses are saying this out loud that people are looking for, for connection. So there's a way in which we need this both economically, but also um, I think socially as part of our cities and towns.
As well. And you're gonna see more and more people wanting that, I think.
[00:49:24] Sean Martin: Yeah. I, I have so much to say and so much more I want to hear, but, uh, we're, we're at the final moment. I want to, I'm gonna give, uh, I think everybody kind of said a, a final piece here except who you maybe a, a final note from you before we wrap.
[00:49:38] Puya Partow-Navid: Um, final note. I think the, the future is interesting. I think we, the, uh, from a legal perspective, just keep your eye out on the court cases that are coming out. Um, they're going to, they're gonna be the foundation for what's gonna happen in the future. Um, and, but I do think, one thing I think we need to touch on, I don't know if you guys [00:50:00] touched on it, is, um, watermarking ai.
Because I think when we get into deep fakes and we went get into. What can happen in the future? I think that's a very important aspect that needs to be considered, is how do we, how do we identify what is generated by ai? And I think that that's gonna be important to do in the future because it's gonna become, the lines are gonna come blurry.
And I think that's, that's something we need to look into as well.
[00:50:27] Sean Martin: Yeah. It's funny that, that was a fingerprinting article was what drove this, uh
[00:50:31] Puya Partow-Navid: mm-hmm.
[00:50:32] Sean Martin: Whole thing for me in the first place. Um, well, this, this was. Super cool. Um, I'm, I'm really grateful we all got the chance to, to come together and share our thoughts and experiences here.
And I mean, the future is exciting, right? Um,
[00:50:48] Marco Ciappelli: well if I, Sean, if I can have one word, it's you go for it. It's gonna be imperfection and I'm gonna highlight that with Chandler and, and live music. It's imperfect and that's why people want to go see it and get together. [00:51:00] Humanity and being human means to be imperfect.
That's why digital music, it's not necessarily, you know, that perfection, that that is gonna attract our ears and our passion and, and the way we are. So. Back
[00:51:14] Michael Sheldrick: and at, and at the very least it's gonna force this discussion on IP because something like 50 countries don't even have these frameworks. So it will, it will force all of us to, to progress.
So I think there's, there's, there's a lot of good that will will come from this, even if it's, um, at the same time, like with all transitions, a little bit scary.
[00:51:36] Sean Martin: Perfect. Well, thanks everybody for, uh, this great conversation. Thank you. Uh, everybody stay tuned for more music evolves and, uh, we'll, we'll keep, uh, keep creating, keep playing, keep enjoying music.
[00:51:49] Marco Ciappelli: Keep rocking.
[00:52:00] Okay.