Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences - January 23, 2025
Meeting Topic:Harnessing Generative AI for Songwriting Success
Moderator Name:Steven Nebgen
Speaker Name:Dr. Michael Harrington
Other business or activities at the meeting:CRAS is very excited to welcome Dr. E. Michael Harrington on the topic of 'Harnessing Generative AI for Songwriting Success'. We began by going through some introductions, and Dr. Harrington went over some of the people he has worked with, including Adele, Lady Gaga, Disney, Dixie Chicks, Diana Ross, and many, many more. We discussed the differences between generative AI platforms, including ChatGPT, Gemini, and Meta AI. Dr. Harrington asked them to do a variety of things, and ended up asking them to act as a musicologist so that he could test their accuracy. They failed each test that he did. He then asked it to create a hit song using phrases like 'haters gonna hate', 'lovers gonna love', and 'shake it off'. The song it made was similar to Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", and he analyzed the legality of this to see if it could (1) be copyrighted, and (2) get hit with a copyright offence. He tried a similar experiment in 2024, a year after he originally attempted this, to see how the outcome changed. The song that it gave was an exact copy of Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off", but it stopped itself after a minute and recognized that it could be a copyright strike. Then, we began discussing the exact legality of AI. When prompted, AI responds that it believes it falls under the Fair Use doctrine. According to the Copyright office, "Copyright can only protect... the product of human creativity". If a work is produced by a machine, it lacks 'human authorship' and will not be copyrighted by the Copyright Office. They also say that applicants have a 'duty to disclose' if AI was used to create a work. We then discussed the ELVIS Act (Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security) passed by Tennessee, which was created to protect musicians from the unauthorized use of their likeness and voices by AI. We looked at some examples of how AI has been used to create things, and the downfalls of it. We also discussed how AI is affected by society. Dr. Harrington wrapped up with the idea that while AI struggles with informative prompts, it can be very helpful for creative purposes.
