Inside the music industry's battle with the UK government over AI song generators

Universal Music Group has been asking music streaming services like Spotify to stop developers from scraping its material to train AI bots to make new songs. The label, which controls about a third of the recorded music industry, has also been issuing substantial numbers of takedown requests in relation to AI uploads appearing online. It is the latest move in the music industry's growing battle to prevent AIs from using its songs without licensing them. On a "royalty free music generator" like Mubert, it's already possible to type in a prompt and the programme will use AI to search a catalogue of music for patterns. Tell it to play a "fast voodoo rhythm in the style of a nursery rhyme with some pretty electronics", and it will copy parts of songs that correspond and generate music to match.