Sweden Launches New AI Music License; Social Media Influencers Push for Similar Protections
Victims of AI Copyright voice their desires for protection against AI phenomenon
By Ryan Garipoli
Sweden made headlines in the AI world earlier this month when music rights organization STIM introduced a license allowing AI companies to legally use its singers’ copyrighted music to train models, Reuters reported. Singers will receive royalties to compensate for the use of their intellectual property - a step toward fair payment for artists whose industry has been strongly impacted by AI, and one that has prompted social media influencers to call for similar protections.
The landscape of social media has experienced extreme change due to the rise of AI-generated content. Every day, TikTok accounts driven by AI upload dozens of videos and rack up hundreds of thousands of views. This new storm of AI-generated content has raised more concern for human creators than just competition, such as likeness and content theft.
Melia Luker (@mousemelia on TikTok) is a social media content creator whose likeness was stolen by an AI company to promote its platform as a financial tool. Luker said the video had changed the captions and theme of a video she had previously made using AI. Luker expressed her worries about creators’ lack of protection when AI is used to alter creators’ speech.
“It is unsettling and concerning because I think you can make anyone say anything. … I don’t want someone presenting opinions that aren’t my own and promoting something with my likeness,” Luker said.
When asked about applying a license similar to STIM’s to social media, Luker was interested in the idea but had serious reservations about the continued use of her likeness.
“If it was just like a training model for an AI, that’s something different than if they were actually using my likeness in content,” Luker said.
Quentaya Peoples (@vanitvy on TikTok), a creator who had several of her videos repackaged by AI, thinks that some form of AI license for social media would be beneficial to creators. Peoples explained that she would support receiving royalties for repackaged content, but similarly takes issue with AI deep faking her likeness.
“I think that I’m OK if it’s just them taking a video that I made and cropping out my background. … That's different because it’s my actual opinion… they’re not manipulating anything,” Peoples said.
While Peoples said she is unsure of the exact circumstances she would be comfortable with in a potential AI license, she called for action from TikTok to prevent her experience from happening to others.
“I think that TikTok does need to implement something to prevent AI copyright at the very least. I think that those videos should have AI-generated labeling… on the videos where they’re just taking people’s content, that’s not there,” Peoples said.
Social media platforms’ lack of action to protect its creators against AI copyright or creator likeness theft has triggered discussion about what a potential AI social media license could look like.
Jeeya Patel, a Syracuse University student who runs the TikTok account @lebronjeeyames, provided thoughts on how a license could protect creators from the growing prevalence of AI. Patel, a TikTok creator in the editing space, believes that STIM’s license could be used as a model for TikTok because it calls for royalties and mandatory disclosure of intellectual property use. Patel says that because AI-generated and AI assisted edits are being used, it is becoming harder to become successful in the editing space and editors cannot afford to lose revenue to AI theft.
“I spend hours making edits. It’s not fair if AI just takes it.” Patel said.
