Media mogul and coalition of stars join the growing battle over tech firms using creative works to train programs It is an unlikely alliance: the billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch and a panoply of leading artists including the Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, the actors Kevin Bacon and Julianne Moore, and the author Kazuo Ishiguro. This week, they began two very public fights with artificial intelligence companies, accusing them of using their intellectual property without permission to build the increasingly powerful and lucrative new technology. Continue reading...

DJ AG has built a huge audience by inviting performers such as Skepta to join him in London and elsewhere DJ AG knew he was on to something after Daddy Freddy’s performance. The DJ, real name Ashley Gordon, has garnered more than 385,000 followers by doing something incredibly simple: playing music outside and allowing people to perform alongside him while he livestreams the results. Continue reading...

Statement comes as tech firms try to use creative professionals’ work to train AI models Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus, the actor Julianne Moore and the Radiohead singer Thom Yorke are among 10,500 signatories of a statement from the creative industries warning artificial intelligence companies that unlicensed use of their work is a “major, unjust threat” to artists’ livelihoods. The statement comes amid legal battles between creative professionals and tech firms over the use of their work to train AI models such as ChatGPT and claims that using their intellectual property without permission is a breach of copyright. Continue reading...

Known for her wild ‘Imogenation’, Heap has always reworked pop with tech, but her new data-mining project is her boldest yet. She explains why ‘you can’t stop progress’ It’s a very Imogen Heap way to say hello: “I’ve got to show you this thing – it’s going to change your life!” She beams at me, showing off a mysterious black device. The musician and technologist is an electric, eccentric presence even on video call, talking passionately and changing thoughts like a rally driver turns corners. She whirls me from her kitchen floor to her living room in her family home in Havering near London, familiar to thousands of fans (AKA Heapsters) who tune in to watch her improvise, via livestream, on a grand piano. She points to a glamorous white tent on the edge of a well-kept lawn: “That’s my tent I’ve been sleeping in, by the way,” she laughs, enjoying the surprise. Continue reading...

German city’s Sinfoniker says aim is not to replace humans but to play music human conductors would find impossible She’s not long on charisma or passion but keeps perfect rhythm and is never prone to temperamental outbursts against the musicians beneath her three batons. Meet MAiRA Pro S, the next-generation robot conductor who made her debut this weekend in Dresden. Her two performances in the eastern German city are intended to show off the latest advances in machine maestros, as well as music written explicitly to harness 21st-century technology. The artistic director of Dresden’s Sinfoniker, Markus Rindt, said the intention was “not to replace human beings” but to perform complex music that human conductors would find impossible. Continue reading...

Formerly reviled music technology is more popular than ever as designers experiment for a growing group of enthusiasts Queen refused to use them. The Musicians’ Union tried to ban them. Then computers overtook them. Synthesisers have been mocked, despised and discarded throughout their history, yet somehow they are entering a new golden era. A new wave of synth makers has emerged, creating machines that are more ambitious and often quirkier than their bleep-making predecessors, feeding the appetites of an expanding pool of enthusiasts. Continue reading...

Cody Matthew Johnson explains how he has scoured every sonic corner, from spider monkeys’ chatter to gamelan, to write tunes a space travelling street thief would hear Have you ever thought what walking into a sweaty, dusty club on one of Star Wars’ desert planets would sound like? About what plays on the radios in the casinos on those Las Vegas-like planets? What do the merchants and miscreants of Tatooine listen to when they’re not working the moisture farms or fending off Tusken Raiders? Pondering questions like that has been Cody Matthew Johnson’s life for the past few years. The composer and artist has flirted with video game music before, with credits on Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Bayonetta, and the cult indie Kurosawa-inspired side-scroller, Trek to Yomi. But for Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, he was tasked with making music for its seedy criminal underbelly. “There is a limited scope of in-world musical expression in the original trilogy, and this was our opportunity to explore music canonically during that time in a much wider scope,” said Johnson, when I asked how much of a guideline the original trilogy provided for his work on Outlaws. “There are some ‘rules’, per se, to creating cantina music in the style of the original trilogy, and while this game does take place during that time period, we were encouraged to only be slightly influenced by the original trilogy cantina music.” Continue reading...

The band’s Martyn Ware has hit out at the fee offered for Temptation in the Grand Theft Auto franchise. But as music becomes ever more central to gaming, the sums get complicated The 1983 song Temptation by Heaven 17 is an undisputed classic of the synth pop era, a glacial paean to sexual tension denied the number No 1 spot only by the sheer might of True by Spandau Ballet. So how much should it be worth to a video game publisher in 2024? That’s the question many asked when Heaven 17’s Martyn Ware recently tweeted about a licensing offer from Rockstar to use the track in Grand Theft Auto VI. “IT WAS $7500 [£5,600] – for a buyout of any future royalties from the game – forever,” he typed. “To put this in context, Grand Theft Auto 6 [sic] grossed, wait for it… $8.6 BILLION. Ah, but think of the exposure… Go fuck yourself.” The thread went viral and Ware was inundated with reactions, ranging from support to bewildered chastisement. Ware later clarified that the figure he gave was his share of a $22,500 payment to the whole band; industry experts waded in pointing out that the record label would also need to be paid, bringing the total offer up to a possible $45,000. Would that be fair for a song that may just feature on the GTA radio stations? GTA V featured 240 tracks on release and now has more than 400. As one industry insider told me about the Heaven 17 offer, “you multiply that by a few hundred and you’ve got the biggest ever music budget for a video game.” Continue reading...

Marking the anniversary, the creators of the rap beef beat-em-up sequel share memories of transforming Flavor Flav and Snoop Dogg into legendary video game characters ‘I remember we visited Ghostface Killah [of the Wu-Tang Clan] and he was mad at us!” recalls Daryl Anselmo, former EA employee and art director for 2004’s landmark hip-hop-fused beat-em-up, Def Jam: Fight for NY. “Ghostface had a four-pound solid gold eagle bracelet and he insisted his character’s finishing move should be this bird coming to life and pecking out all the other rappers’ eyeballs. The limitations of the PlayStation 2 technology and our violence restrictions meant we couldn’t pull it off. It was impossible.” The game’s producer Josh Holmes interjects: “When Ghostface first asked me about the eagle, Lauren [Wirtzer Seawood, another one of the game’s producers] told me just to nod along and smile. When we saw him again in the studio for the sequel, I apologised [for misleading him] and we quickly moved on to recording his character’s expanded insults for the new game. I remember one was: ‘Go home and cry to your momma. And, while you’re at it, tell her I’m hungry!’” Continue reading...

Continue reading...