Universal Music Group Urging Spotify and Apple to Block AI From Using Its Music

Universal Music Group is urging streaming services to block AI from using its music to train its technology.

Recently the company sent out several takedown requests.

“We will not hesitate to take steps to protect our rights and those of our artists,” Universal said.

According to the Financial Times, Google developed a tool called MusicLM but did not release the product for fear of “potential misappropriation of creative content.”

Spotify and Apple are among the streaming services Universal is requesting not to allow AI to utilize the melodies or lyrics of songs it has copyrighted.

The company said in an email, “We have become aware that certain AI systems might have been trained on copyrighted content without obtaining the required consents from or paying compensation to the rights holders who own or produce the content.”

It continued, “We have a moral and commercial responsibility to our artists to work to prevent the unauthorized use of their music and to stop platforms from ingesting content that violates the rights of artists and other creators.”

The statement added, “We expect our platform partners will want to prevent their services from being used in ways that harm artists.”