Category: Technology

Major music labels are taking on AI startups that they believe trained on their songs without paying. Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony Music Group sued the music generators Suno and Udio for allegedly infringing on copyrighted works on a “massive scale.”

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) initiated the lawsuits and wants to establish that “nothing that exempts AI technology from copyright law or that excuses AI companies from playing by the rules.”

The music labels’ lawsuits in US federal court accuse Suno and Udio of scraping their copyrighted tracks from the internet. The filings against the AI companies reportedly demand injunctions against future use and damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work. (That sounds like it could add up to a monumental sum if the court finds them liable.) The suits appear aimed at establishing licensed training as the only acceptable industry framework for AI moving forward — while instilling fear in companies that train their models without consent.

Suno AI and Udio AI (Uncharted Labs run the latter) are startups with software that generates music based on text inputs. The former is a partner of Microsoft for its CoPilot music generation tool. The RIAA claims the services’ reproduced tracks are uncannily similar to existing works to the degree that they must have been trained on copyrighted songs. It also claims the companies didn’t deny that they trained on copyright works, instead shielding themselves behind their training being “confidential business information” and standard industry practices.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the lawsuits accuse the AI generators of creating songs that sounded remarkably similar to The Temptations’ “My Girl,” Green Day’s “American Idiot,” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” among others. They also claim the AI services produced indistinguishable vocals from artists like Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson and ABBA.

Wired reports that one example cited in the lawsuit details how one of the AI tools reproduced a song that sounded nearly identical to Chuck Berry’s pioneering classic “Johnny B. Goode,” using the prompt, “1950s rock and roll, rhythm & blues, 12 bar blues, rockabilly, energetic male vocalist, singer guitarist,” along with some of Berry’s lyrics. The suit claims the generator almost perfectly generated the original track’s “Go, Johnny, go, go” chorus.

To be clear, the RIAA isn’t advocating based on the principle that all AI training on copyrighted works is wrong. Instead, it’s saying it’s illegal to do so without licensing and consent, i.e., when the labels (and, likely to a lesser degree, the artists) don’t make any money off of it.

The recording industry is working on AI deals of its own that license music in a way that it believes is fair for its bottom line. These include an agreement between Universal and SoundLabs, which allows the latter to create vocal models for artists while still allowing the singers to control ownership and output. The label also partnered with YouTube on an AI licensing and royalties deal. Universal also represents Drake, whose diss track against Kendrick Lamar from earlier this year used AI-generated copies of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg’s voices.

“There is room for AI and human creators to forge a sustainable, complementary relationship,” the filing against Suno reads. “This can and should be achieved through the well-established mechanism of free-market licensing that ensures proper respect for copyright owners.”

According to Bloomberg, Suno co-founder Mikey Shulman said in April that the company’s practices are “legal” and “fairly in line with what other people are doing.” The AI industry at large appears to be attempting to race towards a threshold where its tools are considered too ubiquitous to be held accountable before anyone can do anything about how it trained its models.

“We work very closely with lawyers to make sure that what we’re doing is legal and industry standard,” Suno’s founder said in April. “If the law changes, obviously we would change our business one way or the other.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/record-labels-sue-ai-music-generators-for-massive-infringement-of-recorded-music-172915925.html?src=rss 

Several audio companies have been hopping on the open-ear earbuds bandwagon, a headphone design where the speaker rests outside the listener’s ear rather than inside it. Beyerdynamic is the latest to offer this listening option with the VERIO 200, the brand’s first set of open-ear true wireless headphones. The set retails for $220 and is available to order today.

Open-ear headphones can come with some sacrifices to audio quality, but this set features a custom 16.22mm graphene driver. Using the lightweight graphene in speakers can cut down on sound distortion, so the high-end material could help negate that usual performance tradeoff with this style. The open-ear approach can also be more comfortable if you don’t enjoy the usual in-ear earbud experience. And you’ll be able to hear your surroundings much better with this design, something that can be important for people wearing these in outdoor settings. VERIO 200 has a hook design that is intended to keep the headset secure even during physical activity.

Battery life is always a concern with true wireless devices, but Beyerdynamic claims pretty solid longevity. The company says that the VERIO 200 has up to eight hours of battery life, and its charging case adds another 27 hours. The buds are Bluetooth 5.3-compatible and can pair with both iOS and Android devices. They can be controlled by voice or through Beyerdynamic’s new mobile app, which offers full custom EQ capabilities and sound tuning.

The company has secured several firsts in its recent product launches, including its first wireless gaming headset in 2023 and its first true wireless earbuds in 2022.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/beyerdynamic-debuts-its-first-open-ear-true-wireless-headphones-140008310.html?src=rss 

Elden Ring‘s giant Shadow of the Erdtree expansion dropped on Friday and it didn’t take long for players to poke under the hood and discover some fascinating things. The first big bad of the DLC is the Divine Beast Dancing Lion, a fearsome creature that uses wind, lightning, ice and its own hulking body to decimate foul Tarnished. But the mandatory boss suddenly seems a bit less terrifying after YouTuber BonfireVN found out that it’s basically just two large dudes in a suit.

BonfireVN’s video shows one person wearing the lion’s head and another one hunched over in the rear — a little like a pantomime horse. The video shows the front end of the near-nude boss firing off elemental attacks and twisting through the air to lunge at the player, while the back half just sorta tags along as if connected by magnets.

Game developers use all kinds of tricks just to make things work, but this one actually makes sense on a conceptual level. As 80 Level points out, it keeps in with the Chinese tradition of the lion dance, wherein two people wear a costume and mimic the movements of the big cat. One person controls the head and the other takes charge of the body, albeit with less flip flopping than the namesake Elden Ring boss.

Meanwhile, the $40 Shadow of the Erdtree DLC is evidently a hit already. Elden Ring (which includes the DLC) reached a simultaneous player count of 780,000 on Steam alone over the weekend. It hadn’t seen those kinds of numbers since it neared a million concurrent Steam players when it debuted in early 2022. Elden Ring has now sold more than 25 million copies, making it one of the best-selling games of all time.

Shadow of the Erdtree has earned near-unanimous praise from critics, but many players felt it was too difficult and review bombed it on Steam as a result. Elden Ring‘s creators have a clear message to naysayers, though: get good, scrubs. 

“If we really wanted the whole world to play the game, we could just crank the difficulty down more and more. But that wasn’t the right approach,” From president and Elden Ring director Hidetaka Miyazaki told The Guardian. “Had we taken that approach, I don’t think the game would have done what it did, because the sense of achievement that players gain from overcoming these hurdles is such a fundamental part of the experience. Turning down difficulty would strip the game of that joy — which, in my eyes, would break the game itself.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/elden-ring-dlcs-fearsome-dancing-lion-boss-is-just-two-big-dudes-in-a-suit-124451502.html?src=rss 

Apple may be on the hook for a fine of up to 10 percent of its global annual revenue following a regulatory action from European Union officials. In the preliminary findings of its investigation, the bloc says the company breached Digital Markets Act (DMA) rules by failing to let App Store developers freely tell users about alternate payment options away from Apple’s ecosystem.  

If Apple is found guilty, it could face a fine of tens of billions of dollars under the DMA’s severe penalties. Should a DMA violation be repeated, fines can reach up to 20 percent of global annual revenue. 

The European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, opened this investigation into Apple in March. From that start date, it has 12 months to finalize the preliminary findings. This also marks the first regulatory action under the DMA, as The Financial Times notes.

The EC preliminarily found that Apple has broken so-called anti-steering rules. Major tech companies that are subject to the DMA are required to let third-party developers inform users about alternative ways to make purchases without charging developers to do so.

In their preliminary findings, officials determined that none of Apple’s updated terms let developers freely nudge customers toward alternative payment options. The EC notes that Apple doesn’t let developers tell users how much less they could pay elsewhere.

Apple by and large only allows developers to use link-outs, the Commission said — in other words, they can include a link to a web page to carry out a payment. “The link-out process is subject to several restrictions imposed by Apple that prevent app developers from communicating, promoting offers and concluding contracts through the distribution channel of their choice,” the EC said.

Regulators added that although Apple is entitled to receive a payment for helping developers find new customers through the App Store, “the fees charged by Apple go beyond what is strictly necessary for such remuneration.” For example, they point out, developers have to pay Apple a fee for any purchase of digital services or goods that someone makes within seven days of an app link-out.

Developers have to fork over up to 30 percent of any purchases made via the App Store (Google charges similar fees for Play Store purchases). As such, developers are able to offer consumers cheaper prices if they make purchases away from the App Store.

In 2020, Epic Games informed Fortnite players through the game’s mobile apps that they could pay less for V-Bucks by purchasing the in-game currency directly from the developer. Apple and Google swiftly booted the game off their app marketplaces, prompting legal battles that are still ongoing. However, thanks to the DMA, Epic plans to launch its own mobile app store in the EU and re-release a mobile version of Fortnite in the bloc later this year.

The EC has also opened a fresh investigation into Apple over another potential DMA violation. The bloc has taken issue with new fees Apple is charging developers “to access some of the new features enabled by the DMA,” such as the ability to offer a third-party app marketplace as well as app downloads through other means, such as the web. The EC notes that Apple still allows developers to keep operating under a previous agreement, which doesn’t let them make use of alternative distribution channels.

Devs who sign up for the new terms are subject to what Apple calls a core technology fee. This equates to a payment of €0.50 per user per year after the first million users. The fee, which Apple announced in January, applies even to downloads from third-party app marketplaces. Many of Apple’s rivals slammed the company over the new terms (as well as over updated rules for third-party payments in the US).

The EC is also looking into whether Apple is making it too complicated for users to install third-party app marketplaces and apps. The third part of the investigation concerns “the eligibility requirements for developers related to the ability to offer alternative app stores or directly distribute apps from the web on iPhones,” such as needing to have a developer account that’s in good standing. 

Engadget has contacted Apple for comment. 

The company recently found itself in hot water with the EU on a similar front — the bloc fined it €1.8 billion ($1.95 billion) earlier this year over violations of anti-steering rules. The Commission claimed that Apple prohibited third-party developers of music streaming apps from telling iOS users that they could pay less for subscriptions if they sign up away from Apple’s ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Apple said on Friday that it was delaying the rollout of Apple Intelligence — the company’s name for a suite of generative AI features that will debut in iOS 18 — and some other features in the EU. “We are concerned that the interoperability requirements of the DMA could force us to compromise the integrity of our products in ways that risk user privacy and data security,” the company told Bloomberg.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-may-face-a-mammoth-fine-after-the-eu-said-it-violated-competition-rules-120019892.html?src=rss