Nation music star Luke Bryan offers a fist bump to Gov. Invoice earlier than Lee signed a invoice Thursday, March 21, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn.
Mark Humphrey/AP
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Mark Humphrey/AP
Nation music star Luke Bryan offers a fist bump to Gov. Invoice earlier than Lee signed a invoice Thursday, March 21, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn.
Mark Humphrey/AP
Tennessee made historical past on Thursday, changing into the first U.S. state to log off on laws to protect musicians from unauthorized synthetic intelligence impersonation.
“Tennessee (sic) is the music capital of the world, & we’re main the nation with historic protections for TN artists & songwriters against rising AI expertise,” Gov. Invoice Lee introduced on social media.
The Making certain Likeness Voice and Picture Safety Act, or ELVIS Act, is an up to date model of the state’s previous proper of publicity regulation. Whereas the previous regulation protected an artist’s identify, {photograph} or likeness, the new laws contains AI-specific protections.
As soon as the regulation takes impact on July 1, individuals can be prohibited from utilizing AI to mimic an artist’s voice with out permission.
Lee signed the invoice inside Robert’s Western World, the famed Nashville honky tonk, the place he was gathered with nation music superstars Chris Janson and Luke Bryan.
“What a tremendous precedent for Tennessee to get in entrance of this,” Bryan informed the crowd.
“To know that our state protects us and what we’re about and what we labored so onerous for is only a testomony to how nice this state is.”
Tennessee has lengthy been often called a musical powerhouse state, from nation to blues music. The state has been a launching pad for the careers of a few of the nation’s largest superstars, together with Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, BB King, and Taylor Swift.
The state’s music trade helps greater than 61,000 jobs and hosts greater than 4,500 music venues, in accordance to the governor’s workplace.
“From Beale Avenue to Broadway, to Bristol and past, Tennessee is thought for our wealthy inventive heritage that tells the story of our nice state,” mentioned Lee in a press launch about the invoice when it was launched in January.
“As the expertise panorama evolves with synthetic intelligence, I thank the Basic Meeting for its partnership in creating authorized safety for our best-in-class artists and songwriters.”
Lawmakers have been struggling to sustain with the speedy acceleration of AI expertise, because it continues to affect a number of industries. In the music trade, songwriters, singers, and producers have expressed issues about the present lack of protections over issues like copyrights and mental property.
Final yr, music followers responded with disbelief after an nameless TikTok person used AI to simulate the voices of artists Drake and The Weeknd to create the viral tune “Coronary heart on My Sleeve.” The artists’ label proprietor Common Music Group invoked copyright violation to get the tune faraway from platforms together with TikTok, Spotify and YouTube.
Whereas largely considered as a risk, producers have additionally been utilizing the expertise to make some spectacular breakthroughs.
It was AI instruments that made it doable for The Beatles to launch what they’ve referred to as their ultimate tune, “Now and Then,” which was printed in November 2023. The artist Grimes has additionally inspired the use of AI in tune making, going as far to encourage creators to use AI-generated variations of her voice to make new music, providing to break up 50% royalties on any profitable hits.