Could Stability AI’s proposed licensing marketplace solve AI’s copyright problem?
Stability AI is building a creator-first licensing platform to address copyright concerns around generative AI. Could it help solve the ongoing issues in the music industry?
A shift in Stability AI’s approach
Stability AI has not always taken the ethical high ground when it comes to copyright and generative AI. The UK-based company is currently facing lawsuits for allegedly scraping the internet for images to train its image generator model, Stable Diffusion, without permission.
However, Stability AI may be switching its approach in a recent turn of events. Stability AI recently revealed it’s working on a licensing marketplace aimed at compensating creators.
The change in direction has a lot to do with its newly appointed CEO, Prem Akkaraju. In an interview with the Financial Times, Akkaraju shared that the company wants to launch a system where artists can voluntarily opt-in and get paid for licensing their work to train AI models.
This marks a serious change of tone for the company. Former executive Ed Newton-Rex, who worked on Stability AI’s generative audio tool, quit in 2023 over the firm’s refusal to compensate artists.
“I’ve resigned from my role leading the Audio team at Stability AI, because I don’t agree with the company’s opinion that training generative AI models on copyrighted work is ‘fair use’.”
Ed Newton-Rex, former Stability AI executive via MBW
So, how would it work?
The concept is fairly simple. Creators can voluntarily opt-in to their work being used, licensed, and compensated for by AI companies training their models. The company now firmly believes creators should be compensated for work they submit to be used- a far cry from the internet scraping mindset they allegedly adopted at the start.
“I think that a marketplace for people to opt into and then upload their art, I think that’s going to happen.”
Prem Akkaraju, Stability AI CEO
While the idea sounds promising, the details are still being figured out. Challenges lie in tracking which material gets used and ensuring everyone gets fairly compensated. To solve this, Stability AI is reportedly looking to tech solutions already used in the music industry, like Shazam’s music detection capabilities.
“That’s part of what we’re working on. You can have this as a fingerprinting type of technology and I think that’s going to take a lot of opt-in from both sides.”
Prem Akkaraju, Stability AI CEO
Relevance to the music industry
While Stability AI isn’t focused solely on music, its move is relevant to the wider music industry. AI generators like Suno and Udio have been accused of training their models on copyrighted songs without permission. When it comes to AI and music copyright, the main concerns center around ownership and compensation.
Stability AI’s proposed licensing marketplace could offer part of the solution. If AI companies adopt opt-in systems, it would provide artists with some level of control over how their work is used and receive compensation for doing so. Although issues may still arise when it comes to controlling what work is then produced by AI, and the compensation related to whatever is generated. Still, it’s a step towards more ethical practices.
This isn’t something we haven’t seen before, with ethical start-ups like Musical AI already testing similar ethical approaches to solve AI’s copyright issues in the music industry. With Stability AI already being an established name, its efforts could pave the way for broader industry change.
Looking ahead
CEO Akkaraju says Stability AI has already shifted to only using “free-to-use” or licensed material for model training. He also mentioned safety measures are in place to prevent AI misuse, such as deepfakes of famous people or replicating original works. Instead, the model generates works “inspired by billions of images at one time”.
Of course, Stability AI still faces legal battles from past practices. However, this new licensing portal could help rebuild the trust and set a standard for how AI companies interact with the creative industries.
In a time when AI is the center of controversy in the music industry, initiatives like this could provide the solution needed.