Exploration Weekly - Creators Urge ‘No Fakes Act’ Passage in New Campaign / US Internet Providers Ask Supreme Court to Scrap Cox Judgement / Musician Accused of $10M AI Streaming Fraud Scam Pleads Not Guilty

Behind every good song and album, there was a team of people that came together to create something special. When you listen to a song you might not think of how complex the process was to get it to where you are listening to it at. Creating music is a rewarding challenge. Songwriters, recording artists, composers, producers, and audio engineers put their all into creating something for the listener to enjoy. Producers and audio engineers manage the creative elements of the technical process of recording the song or album.

Our guide explains who is a producer, what a producer does, and why a producer is so important. The term producer often gets tied in with audio engineer; while they have many similarities, these two individuals have different roles within the music industry and the progress of creating music.

Our guide has been written to provide a broad account of how performance licensing works, as well as to paint a detailed picture of the more granular aspects of the business. The goal is to empower creators to better leverage the performances of their works.

If you would like to learn about our copyright administration services to find you unclaimed royalties, please visit our website.

In this newsletter:

• Johnny Cash Estate, Reba McEntire, Tyga, Joe Walsh, Lainey Wilson, and Many More Urge ‘No Fakes Act’ Passage in New Campaign
• US Internet Providers Slam “Extortionate Pressure” of Copyright Lawsuits as They Urge the Supreme Court to Scrap Cox Judgement
• Musician Accused of $10M AI Streaming Fraud Scam Pleads Not Guilty
• American Hockey League Sued for Alleged Copyright Infringement by Production Music Firm APM

The Human Artistry Campaign and hundreds of creators are urging Congress to pass the No Fakes Act, a proposed law to protect against AI-generated imitations of voices and likenesses.

Cox Communications is trying to get the US Supreme Court to review the billion dollar judgment in its legal battle with the major record companies. Yesterday four other ISPs made a submission to the court supporting their rival and urging the top court to intervene.

Musician Michael Smith has pleaded not guilty to charges related to a $10 million AI streaming fraud scam.

Now, the details...

Exploration Weekly - September 20, 2024
Compiled by Ana Berberana

Johnny Cash Estate, Reba McEntire, Tyga, Joe Walsh, Lainey Wilson, and Many More Urge ‘No Fakes Act’ Passage in New Campaign

It’s time for Congress to establish federal AI soundalike and lookalike protections with the No Fakes Act – at least according to the Human Artistry Campaign and hundreds of involved creators. This latest push for the No Fakes Act’s passage kicked off with an advert from the Human Artistry Campaign, which counts as members the RIAA, A2IM, and several others. In said advert, which was printed in Politico, the likes of 21 Savage, Billy Idol, Cardi B, Elvis Costello, Mary J. Blige, Lee Greenwood, deadmau5, Common, Joe Walsh, Randy Travis, and many more expressed support for the legislation. Besides arriving on the heels of California’s new SAG-AFTRA-backed AI laws, the current showing of No Fakes Act support has come about seven weeks after the bill’s formal introduction in Congress. Short for the “Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act,” the proposed law dates back to October of 2023 and would establish a federal right protecting one’s voice and likeness. The music industry has strongly backed the bill from the outset. That includes a related April appearance before Congress from Warner Music head Robert Kyncl. However, like with California’s five just-implemented AI laws, the No Fakes Act has attracted criticism as well. ReCreate Coalition executive director Brandon Butler, for instance, is of the belief that it “threatens free expression online” and “would create more problems for creativity and society than it solves.”

US Internet Providers Slam “Extortionate Pressure” of Copyright Lawsuits as They Urge the Supreme Court to Scrap Cox Judgement

The US Supreme Court has been urged to review and overturn the judgment in the billion dollar legal battle between the major record companies and Cox Communications by four internet service providers, which compete with Cox but back their rival in this dispute. The four ISPs - Frontier, Lumen, Altice and Verizon - have invested “hundreds of billions of dollars in network infrastructure” over the last three decades, they declare in a submission to the Supreme Court. They did that partly to pursue their own business interests, but also to help US Congress achieve its official objective of promoting “the continued development of the internet”. The ruling in the majors v Cox case “strikes at the heart of that effort”, they insist. That’s because it “saddles ISPs with responsibility for online copyright infringement committed by others”, even though they “do not participate in, encourage or in any way assist” in that infringement. In fact, they “forbid copyright infringement through robust anti-piracy policies and programmes”. And, of course, being held responsible for another’s infringement can prove to be very expensive indeed, because US copyright law allows statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work. “Cox faced a $1 billion verdict”, the ISP's write. “Frontier is currently defending a $400 million lawsuit, Altice USA is defending a lawsuit with an immense range of potential statutory damages, and recent press reports suggest Verizon is facing up to $2.6 billion in potential liability. The extortionate pressure such lawsuits exert is acute”, they add, and detracts from the ISP’s “continued innovation to fulfill Congress’s goal of connecting all Americans to the internet”.

Musician Accused of $10M AI Streaming Fraud Scam Pleads Not Guilty

A musician indicted by the US Government earlier this month over an alleged $10 million streaming fraud scam has pleaded not guilty. As reported by Law360, Michael Smith, a 52-year-old resident of North Carolina, entered his plea in front of U.S. District Judge John Koeltl in Manhattan on Thursday “during a brief proceeding”. According to court documents, Judge John Koeltl issued an order on Thursday (September 18) setting Smith’s bail at $500,000. The US Government charged Smith with three felony counts in connection with a “scheme to create hundreds of thousands of songs with artificial intelligence and use automated programs called ‘bots’ to stream the AI-generated songs billions of times”. Smith is alleged to have fraudulently generated over $10 million in royalties through the scheme between 2017 and 2024. He faces charges of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy, each of which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. The indictment, which was unsealed earlier this month, alleged that Smith used a number of measures to artificially boost streams, including fake email accounts and cloud services, and paying for Family plans on various streaming platforms. At one point, according to the DOJ’s announcement, Smith estimated that he could use bots to generate about 661,440 streams per day, generating annual royalties of $1,207,128.

American Hockey League Sued for Alleged Copyright Infringement by Production Music Firm APM

The American Hockey League has been sued in the US for alleged ‘rampant’ copyright infringement of music in social media posts. The lawsuit was filed in California on Thursday (September 12) by Associated Production Music. The litigation arrived a week after APM filed a lawsuit against pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, also for allegedly using music in promotional videos posted to YouTube and Facebook without permission. The lawsuit also names as defendants companies that operate nine individual teams, including the Utica Comets, Hershey Bears, Ontario Reign, Syracuse Crunch, Tucson Roadrunners, Colorado Eagles, Cleveland Monsters, Rockford IceHogs, and Belleville Senators. According to the lawsuit filed last week, APM claims that it “became aware that AHL teams, on team-specific social media channels, had engaged in rampant infringement of the Recordings by exploiting them in connection with numerous promotional postings”. The lawsuit added: “At no point in time did Defendants obtain APM’s license, authorization, or consent to synchronize the Recordings with the Infringing Videos. Moreover, despite being repeatedly contacted by APM regarding AHL’s unlicensed uses of the Recordings, AHL has refused to obtain proper licenses or admit wrongdoing.”

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