Afinat LLC, the parent corporation of Afinat Records, is branching out for the first time by announcing the second brand label under the imprint title Predicament Omnimedia, which will expand the company’s first forays into popular music genres beyond the flagship classical releases, as well as explore opportunities into video, publishing, podcasting, and “wherever else the 21st century decides to take the industry of media creation, distribution, and exploration,” says CEO R. Lee Streby.
Streby believes that the impact of rapidly advancing AI tech in all of entertainment media is as inevitable as the development of the internet was in launching the third and fourth industrial revolutions. “In music and visual media alone, we saw the shift from physical to digital recording creation and distribution, plus digital film distribution completely disrupt those entire business models in the 90’s, 2000’s, shutting down entire companies like Tower Records, Blockbuster Video, and led us into the modern streaming era right alongside the invention and evolution of personal digital devices, from the early mp3 players to today’s most sophisticated smartphones.”
“Today, however, I believe the current streaming model — particularly in music — has become a twisted, tightly-controlled monopoly, carefully hidden but owned and controlled by the richest and most powerful record companies, movie studios, streaming services, and device manufacturers.”
“But while they might seem to control taste, curation, and distribution, AI now allows anyone, especially those with some musical training and production expertise, to compete with the majors on content,” Streby says. “You can produce a studio-quality song in any style or genre you like; and with original human lyrics, stories, new hybrid formats of digital artwork, more artists now have a chance to compete with Hollywood, New York, or Nashville on content at a level that is unprecedented, because the cost of making high quality content is being equalized,” Streby believes. “Opinions are strong but resistance stems from fear.”
Streby believes now is the time for entrepreneurial music creators to act, because he believes the major conglomerates and elite industry leaders, with their vast influence and deep pockets, will not be threatened easily, and have already begun resisting the disruption by fighting it on multiple fronts. He reasons, “We are seeing it first from lawsuits, to lobbying against any perceived straw against The System. Like copyright infringement is the first cry.” He believes that major companies will “ultimately lean heavily into it - but with a BMG or Sony, with far deeper pockets,” he adds. “That’s the same ultimate method that shut out their competition in music in streaming models today. Case in point, the major labels and distributors now own enough of Spotify to influence how the platforms’ algorithm can be engineered to benefit their big hitters, and they are manufacturing stars by the truckload.”
Predicament Omnimedia has started to test the possibilities by developing some AI-enhanced, popular genre songs created by Streby himself and partner, an accomplished DJ and dance producer, Justin Robbins. “I had a stack of song lyrics and melody ideas stored away, things I had written years ago. Pretty low risk popular fare. I pulled those out and rewrote some of the lyrics and developed basic melodies for them, as well as instrumentation ideas, on a keyboard. I created AI voice models using our own vocals and those of others who released theirs for use. We have combined these with real instruments, as well as AI-generated production elements, running finished, mixed tracks through new, inexpensive, AI mastering platforms. And we’re putting them out there to see what happens. This is a big experiment, but it’s exciting to hear your first song come to life in near HD quality, in exact style, genre, tempo, mix, reverb, delay simply on command, so close to release ready.”
When I asked the question about AI generators being trained on copyrighted material? Streby has this to say: “ I’m listening and watching these cases very closely. Nothing has been proven yet. But beneath machine learning and human training? The human musician’s brain is trained over a lifetime on copyrighted material through our ears and eyes. Music is the original master-to-apprentice, competency-based education model, handed down over centuries, and still remains with us today! Any songwriter who has ever written a song cannot claim 100% non-influence from any other songwriter, player, style, or lyric that they’ve ever heard, whether they just listened to and watched them, or actually studied or played with them.” But, Streby says, “I don’t believe that you can copyright scales, chord progressions, centuries of established instrument sounds, the vast capability of synthesis, and basic music theory rules that have existed exactly the same, in centuries of content that’s already freely available just from the public domain. You cannot copyright these basic tools used in making new work. To do so would be like allowing one painter to artist copyright a color or a brush they favored in a famous painting. Only the recipe — combining those elements into a particular work of art, can be truly copyrighted.”
He concludes, “If I ever hear a beat that sounds anywhere close to Billie Jean by Michael Jackson or any other famous song and artist come out of my AI prompt, exactly, I’m never gonna use that, anyway. Why would I want to copy something that’s already been done first, and better, in the same recipe? I think there’s still room for covers, in which case, the original copyright must be fully licensed. Nothing has been proven yet on the training of a model as a tool using copyrighted material that was coaxed by the prompting human behind it. Even if someone finds some infringement in a song generated with AI as a tool, it is likely that that tool will be modified so it does not repeat it, and perhaps some damages will be paid. But it’s not gonna stop where the world is going with this. It is a disruption. But my music mind would rather learn it fast and get in front of it. Musicians are disruptors. Since the beginning. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Barber, all disruptors. We are interested in leaning into it, early, and ethically.”