Nation music star Luke Bryan provides 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 provides 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, turning into the primary U.S. state to log out on laws to guard 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 in opposition to rising AI know-how,” Gov. Invoice Lee introduced on social media. The Guaranteeing Likeness Voice and Picture Safety Act, or ELVIS Act, is an up to date model of the state’s outdated proper of publicity regulation. Whereas the outdated regulation protected an artist’s title, {photograph} or likeness, the brand new laws consists of AI-specific protections.
As soon as the regulation takes impact on July 1, folks might be prohibited from utilizing AI to imitate 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 an incredible precedent for Tennessee to get in entrance of this,” Bryan advised the group. “To know that our state protects us and what we’re about and what we labored so laborious for is only a testomony to how nice this state is.” Tennessee has lengthy been generally known as a musical powerhouse state, from nation to blues music. The state has been a launching pad for the careers of among the nation’s greatest 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 keeping with the governor’s workplace.
“From Beale Road to Broadway, to Bristol and past, Tennessee is understood for our wealthy creative heritage that tells the story of our nice state,” mentioned Lee in a press launch concerning the invoice when it was launched in January. “Because the know-how panorama evolves with synthetic intelligence, I thank the Common Meeting for its partnership in creating authorized safety for our best-in-class artists and songwriters.” Lawmakers have been struggling to maintain up with the speedy acceleration of AI know-how, because it continues to impression a number of industries. Within the music trade, songwriters, singers, and producers have expressed issues concerning the present lack of protections over issues like copyrights and mental property.
Final 12 months, 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 track “Coronary heart on My Sleeve.” The artists’ label proprietor Common Music Group invoked copyright violation to get the track faraway from platforms together with TikTok, Spotify and YouTube. Whereas largely seen as a risk, producers have additionally been utilizing the know-how to make some spectacular breakthroughs. It was AI instruments that made it doable for The Beatles to launch what they’ve known as their closing track, “Now and Then,” which was printed in November 2023. The artist Grimes has additionally inspired using AI in track making, going as far to encourage creators to make use of AI-generated variations of her voice to make new music, providing to separate 50% royalties on any profitable hits.