Universal Music Group CEO Chairman and CEO, Sir Lucian Grainge and YouTube CEO Neal Mohan both announced on their websites the formation of YouTube’s Music AI Incubator. YouTube has adopted 3 AI Music Principles:
Principle #1: AI is here, and we will embrace it responsibly together with our music partners. As generative AI unlocks ambitious new forms of creativity, YouTube and our partners across the music industry agree to build on our long collaborative history and responsibly embrace this rapidly advancing field. Our goal is to partner with the music industry to empower creativity in a way that enhances our joint pursuit of responsible innovation.
Principle #2: AI is ushering in a new age of creative expression, but it must include appropriate protections and unlock opportunities for music partners who decide to participate. We’re continuing our strong track record of protecting the creative work of artists on YouTube. We’ve made massive investments over the years in the systems that help balance the interests of copyright holders with those of the creative community on YouTube.
Principle #3: We’ve built an industry-leading trust and safety organization and content policies. We will scale those to meet the challenges of AI. We spent years investing in the policies and trust and safety teams that help protect the YouTube community, and we’re also applying these safeguards to AI-generated content. Generative AI systems may amplify current challenges like trademark and copyright abuse, misinformation, spam, and more. But AI can also be used to identify this sort of content, and we’ll continue to invest in the AI-powered technology that helps us protect our community of viewers, creators, artists and songwriters–from Content ID to policies and detection and enforcement systems that keep our platform safe behind the scenes. And we commit to scaling this work even further.
YouTube is working with some of Universal’s artists to develop AI policies and tools: “To kick off the program, we’re working with Universal Music Group – a leader in the space – and their incredible roster of talent. This includes global superstar Anitta, internationally renowned and revered songwriter, producer and entrepreneur Björn Ulvaeus, innovative genre-defying artist d4vd, acclaimed musician, composer and producer Don Was, Colombian sensation Juanes, hitmaking producer Louis Bell, visionary composer Max Richter, influential songwriter and producer Rodney Jerkins, iconic singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, 3x Grammy award-winning songwriter and producer, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, acclaimed rapper, multi platinum musician, entrepreneur and philanthropist Yo Gotti, and the estate of American musical icon Frank Sinatra, amongst others. This talented group will help gather insights on generative AI experiments and research that are being developed at YouTube. We’re also excited to welcome our partners across the industry into the program as we move forward. Working together, we will better understand how these technologies can be most valuable for artists and fans, how they can enhance creativity, and where we can seek to solve critical issues for the future.”