The same thing will happen with AI tracks by dead musicians. It seems like a stunt today, but it can quickly metastasize into a whole industry.
That’s likely, because the greed level among corporate and individual owners of the estates of dead musicians is off the charts. I’ve met some greedy musicians over the years, but the great ones always cared more about artistry. The heirs often have very different priorities, and they will have superstars singing ringtones and radio jingles if the money is right.
So AI will lead to a Beatles reunion. Hendrix will jam again. Miles will make another album with the Kind of Blue band. Sonny will croon with Cher once more, and Simon will sing with Garfunkel.
It’s funny you should bring this up as a topic, as to be honest, we all should have seen this coming; Tupac Shakur and Whitney Houston performed shows after they had passed away, using “holograms”. Yes, those shows weren’t up to what they would have been if those artists were alive, but the precursor to what is now happening is there.
Topping that off, apparently, the RIAA has now updated their rules, banning work entirely produced by AI, with some exceptions: an artist must contribute up to at least 20% of an album to be considered for nomination. So if an artist who has passed away has notes written down somewhere (a book, notebook, chord progressions on a page of sheet music, etc.), and those notes reach that 20% threshold, AI could create everything else, and get nominated under that artist’s name, further increasing the hold of the estate over that artist or the corporation holding that artist’s work.
At this point, the slippery slope would apply: Where does this end?
Thanks for the info. I didn’t know about the 20% rule. I find it funny. You can just imagine the heirs looking for the cardboard boxes with stuff from the dead musicians, to find enough flotsam from notebooks and cassette tapes to somehow scrape together 20%!
On a sort of positive note, wouldn’t it be great to “see” our beloved performers once more. Stepping away from the money-grubbing heirs, I would like the world to experience my favorite opera tenor of all time, Franco Corelli. He looks like Rock Hudson and has a voice more powerful, earthy, and sensual than does Pavorotti. But Corelli never got the TV publicity to make him the household word he should be. You can see a few videos of Corelli on YouTube, but they’re not top quality.
I was wondering how to get a performance on film with a hologram, but now AI is a superior technology.
Hmmm.