- Apple Music is rolling out its own system for marking AI-generated music
- ‘Transparency Tags’ will focus on visual elements and musical composition.
- The problem is that the responsibility falls on the record labels and distributors.
The war between AI and the best music streaming services continues, and Apple Music could be the next to burst onto the battlefield with its own AI music tagging system.
Dubbed ‘Transparency Tags’, Apple’s flagship music platform is set to roll out a new metadata system to help identify AI-generated and assisted music. This was revealed in a newsletter sent to industry partners on March 4, but there is one big caveat that seems quite contradictory: the responsibility for labeling falls on record labels and distributors.
Before submitting content to Apple Music, record labels and distributors will have the option to disclose whether AI has been used during the production process, a method Apple is implementing to increase transparency about how companies use AI in music production. The system will focus on four creative aspects.
The first is the music itself, or the “Track” tag, which will be used to show whether the AI has contributed to a material part of the audio recording. This label is only at track level. On a similar note, the ‘Composition’ label will be used to highlight that AI was used in a material part of the musical composition, and also marks AI-generated lyrics.
But Apple Music goes a step further with transparency labels that take a visual approach. In addition to audio tags, Apple Music is rolling out an ‘Artwork’ tag which, as the name implies, flags AI-generated still and moving images used on an album or single cover. The ‘Music Video’ tag is similar and applies to visual components of albums and standalone videos.
Although the newsletter was limited to the eyes of industry partners, Music Business World shared an excerpt of the announcement; “Proper labeling of content is the first step in providing the music industry with the data and tools necessary to develop thoughtful policies around AI,” the outlet begins. “We believe that labels and distributors should take an active role in reporting when the content they offer is created using AI.”
Despite the information we have so far, Apple has not revealed when the transparency labels will be implemented; However, we have reached out for further comment and will update this story if we discover more. It’s not surprising to see Apple Music taking the lead before Spotify has even gotten started, but its frustrating loophole is a bit “one step forward, two steps back.”
It’s optional, for now…
Putting responsibility like this on record labels and music distributors welcomes a host of problems. For one thing, since it’s essentially an opt-in program, it doesn’t guarantee 100% transparency, as record labels can easily choose not to disclose such information, but who can blame them?
You could offer the best song in the world, but having an annoying ‘AI’ tag on your song is not the most attractive thing; As a passionate music fan, I would immediately skip a song if I had this. It’s also a drag on streaming numbers, something record labels aren’t willing to risk. Even if a song only has a small portion of AI-generated audio for creative purposes, most listeners would assume that the entire song is AI-generated and skip it accordingly.
That said, the subscription system could simply be a temporary placeholder for now, as Music Business World reports that transparency labels may become a mandatory practice for labels and distributors when delivering content to Apple Music. It is a very different approach to that taken by its rivals. Deezer, for example, has developed its own AI detection tool that it recently made available to its competitors, while Bandcamp banned AI-generated music entirely.
That simply leaves Spotify to join the growing army of anti-AI music streamers, but while it has tightened up new spoofing rules for music uploads, it has yet to follow suit with a legitimate system that clearly labels AI as trash.
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